


Butterfly Wings

by Kashi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Magic, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Manipulative Relationship, Manipulative Voldemort (Harry Potter), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28807419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kashi/pseuds/Kashi
Summary: A single point of divergence.An AU which explores what would have happened if Voldemort had realized Harry was his Horcrux during their fight for the Philosopher's Stone.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter & Voldemort
Comments: 39
Kudos: 132





	1. Chapter 1

_ Quirrell rolled off him. His face blistering too. Then Harry knew Quirrell couldn't touch his bare skin - not without suffering terrible pain. His only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, to keep him in enough pain to stop him from doing a curse. _

__

Harry jumped to his feet, trying to put his hands on Quirrell, but he heard Voldemort's voice from the back of Quirrell's head curse _. _

" _ PETRIFICUS TOTALUS _ !" 

There was nothing he could do. His body went rigid, and he fell over at once. He lay face-first on the ground, immobilised, and he heard more than saw as Quirrell stopped screaming eventually, though he continued to whimper to the terrible presence in his head. He could only hear brief snatches of the conversation; so when Quirrell let out a scream and slumped down next to him, he was surprised.

Harry was tossed up in the air like a feather. He hung there as if there were invisible manacles around his shoulders. 

"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO DO THIS?" Quirrell - no, this was Voldemort, who now raged at him. It was still Quirrell's face, but the ghost-like presence that had been at the back of his head had spread over his face now.

Voldemort struck Harry's forehead with the wand. 

"I AM GOING TO FIND OUT WHAT THIS POWER OF YOURS IS POTTER AND THEN I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

" _ Legilimens! _ "

The room faded away as he was thrown into a barrage of memories.

_ He was two and crying on his own in his cupboard. He had called Petunia' mummy' like Dudley did and his cousin had hit him with his chubby fists for almost an hour. Petunia had locked him up in his cupboard after that and told him his parents were dead, and he was never to call her that again.  _

__

_ He was crouched over protecting his underbelly from the kicks of the older boys. His eyes were shut tight, and he wished he could do the same for his ears as the boys laughed and called him a freak. _

__

_ One second, he was being chased on the schoolyard, the next he was on the roof. None of the teachers believed him. Uncle Vernon had locked him away in the cupboard for a month to calm his freakishness down. _

__

_ The parish priest had caned him nearly to an inch of his life trying to beat the devil out of him _ .

__

_ He had gotten his ears boxed, and his dinner taken away because he had clearly cheated to have scored more than dudleykins in his exam. He had to make a conscious effort to get his answers wrong in the next test. _

__

_ A young couple had wanted to adopt him. But they had a chat with Mrs Cole and had left hurriedly soon after. _

__

_ Piers had tripped him badly on the playground, and the other kids had all laughed as his cousin's hand-me-down shorts had slipped as he had fallen. _

__

_ Billy and the other kids had killed his little pet snake; it was only right he return the favour. _

__

_ Malfoy was making fun of him for not having a family. He gritted his teeth, gripping his wand, badly wanting to hex him till he could wipe that smirk off his stupid face. _

__

_ "Just because you have a little magic, doesn't change the fact you are mudblood." Malfoy had said. He gripped his wand, eyes burning, promising that he would make Malfoy grovel at his feet someday _ .

__

_ He was going to get his revenge. He was going to... _

__

_ NO! _

__

Harry didn't know whether it was him or Voldemort who had cried out. 

Harry was wrenched out of the muddled-up memories with a nauseating lurch and thrown flat on the ground, still petrified.

_ What had just happened? _

It could not have been more than minutes, but Harry felt like he had spent hours sifting through his life and… Voldemort's? It was like a gateway had opened in his mind, and the memories had all melded into one. Panic was overtaking him quickly. Bile rose up, pushing against his closed mouth, clogging his throat. 

_ This wasn't how things were meant to go!  _ He was going to die, paralysed and chocking on his own vomit! Hot angry tears filling his eyes, blurring his vision.

Hands were suddenly beneath his back, lifting him up and tilting him forward. Harry felt the body bind curse loosen, but his relief was short-lived as he was too busy being messily sick on the dusty floor. 

His whole body spasmed and he swayed, nearly falling into his own vomit, but the hand that had snaked around his chest held him securely to Voldemort's side. 

_ Voldemort's side.  _ His brain stumbled at the thought. He was still unable to move.  _ And yet, if Hermione was able to find help in time, there was a chance.  _

"Get-get away from me!" Harry hated how pathetic and breathless he sounded. He didn't dare meet Voldemort's gaze. Too afraid that he would see those memories again.

But Voldemort only pushed Harry's chin up, forcing him to meet his eyes. Quirrell …Voldemort looked different. No, he was looking at Harry differently. Clearly, this had not been intended as he was looking just as surprised as Harry felt.

_ Had he seen all of it? Those memories?  _ Harry wondered helplessly even __ as Voldemort ran a gloved hand over Harry's face, pushing Harry's sweaty fringe away from his forehead. The pain from the scar felt like it was going to split his head apart as the gloved hand traced it almost gently. He couldn't keep a moan from escaping, and Voldemort snatched his hand away. "Some kind of blood ward. If only I had time…" He murmured almost to himself before asking Harry, "Has your scar hurt before?"

_ What is happening? What was Voldemort doing? Was he going to kill him now? _ Harry felt near hysterical.

"I am not going to kill you, Harry."

"STOP IT. STOP INVADING MY BRAIN!"

Voldemort was still plucking thoughts out of his head. 

Quirrell's eyes flashed angry red, and Harry's scar exploded with sudden increased pain.

His vision went white, but this felt normal – this was how it should be.

Except Voldemort suddenly laughed.

"Do you want to provoke me, Harry? Will that make you feel better?" he mocked.

"NOTHING WILL MAKE ME FEEL BETTER, TILL YOU ARE DEAD"

Harry expected a curse. But Voldemort only looked pleased.

** "All that anger" ** he hissed almost to himself. 

** "YOU KILLED MY PARENTS! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?"  ** Harry couldn't help the automatic response.

Voldemort froze. He stared at Harry in surprise. 

_ What did Voldemort expect? He was gloating about their death minutes ago! _

"It's not that," Voldemort said answering Harry jumbled thoughts, brushing away his parent's death with ease that further infuriated Harry. "It is quite remarkable, Harry, your ability to understand parseltongue." 

_ Parsel…What? Mad. He's gone crazy. Ten years of roaming without a body. Utter bonkers mad! _

Voldemort didn't deny Harry's silent judgment. He glanced around the room, and Harry couldn't help but panic, wondering whether Voldemort would escape. He tried to think of something else desperately, but he knew it was hopeless. Voldemort tensed then caught his jaw in a vice-like grip. 

"You manipulative little boy! Did you really hope to stall me, till someone came looking for you?"

Harry hated the happy gleam in Voldemort's eyes. It made his blood boil. "You won't get away with this! You can kill me but Professor Dumbledore…"

"But I am not going to kill you, Harry, not now, not ever. Didn't I tell you that already?" Voldemort said, leaving him floundering.

"You are mine, Harry," Voldemort said, simply, his gloved fingers casually tracing the dried tear tracks on Harry's cheeks. "And you will learn that I take good care of what's mine."

"I…I am going to stop you," but it was hopeless, Harry was semi paralysed and in too much pain to do anything. 

Voldemort didn't reply. He put Harry down almost gently on the ground and staggered slightly as he rose up. Possessing Quirrell must be taking a toll on him finally. Harry desperately pushed against his invisible bonds, but it was of no use. 

_ Any second now, Hermione would turn up with help, and this nightmare would be over.  _

_ But  _ Voldemort only shook his head pointed his wand at him.

"We are only getting started, Harry."

* * *

Voldemort hated to leave the boy – his  _ Horcrux _ behind. Impossible as it was, he'd felt that sliver of his soul trapped in Harry, latch on to him, during their shared memories. He'd cast about to see the extent of its bound with the boy once he was unconscious. 

Maybe it was localised, something he could remove? But he'd seen the way the jagged torn strands of his own soul were coiled and twisted - almost enmeshed in the boy's soul. It should have horrified him. But, the vicious pain he'd been suffering since his fall – no - even before that seemed to lessen. He felt grounded. Grounded in a way he did not remember feeling ever before his fall because that torn piece of his soul was tied up tightly to Harry's whole and perfect soul.

He had thought the pain of splitting his soul went away after a while.

_ Or had he only learnt to live with it?  _

There was no time to fully understand this now. 

Clearly, this was a trap. Voldemort could see that now. This elaborate but ultimately childish obstacle course set up by Dumbledore.  _ Why hadn't he seen that before? _ Fogged with pain, he had only been able to focus on the hate and the anger. For now, he had to get out of Hogwarts. But not before he made a detour to the Room of Requirement. He planned to leave behind only one of his Horcruxes here today.

But not for long; the connection between him and the boy through his soul fragment was now open and warm. He knew he could use it, even manipulate it, given time. He was never going to let Harry Potter go now. 

* * *

Harry didn't really expect to wake up. Sure, Voldemort had explained in that strange low hissing voice that he was only casting a mild sleeping charm, but he had been sure that he would wake up, if at all, to torture, death and mayhem. 

When he woke to find that he was lying in the infirmary, he was too shocked to call out to Madam Pomfrey who was bustling nearby. Once she noticed him, it was a good half an hour of potions and scans later, that Harry was able to get a word in edgewise. 

"What happened? The Stone? Did you catch-"

She pursed her lips and shook her head reprovingly. 

"I think it best if the Headmaster explains it to you. You should rest. He should be here soon."

"But, Professor Dumbledore must have got back in time, right? He must have caught Voldemort, that's why I am here!"

But Madam Pomfrey had paled at the mention of the Dark Lord's name, and she stepped away hastily.

"I don't know what you mean invoking You Know Who's name! Do not joke about him!" she said crossly. Then looking at Harry's worried face, she sighed. "I am sorry, Harry; the Stone is gone."

_ Gone. He had failed. _

Madam Pomfrey's insistence that Harry speak to Dumbledore first meant that Harry had time to rehash and think about what had happened several times over. Voldemort hadn't been lying. He had a few bruises from the whole ordeal, but even the scans showed that Voldemort hadn't done anything to harm him. It made Harry worry even more. 

_ Why hadn't Voldemort killed him? Why leave him alive? why- _ the questions were endless. 

By the time Dumbledore came to see him, he was exhausted by all the uncertainty.

"Harry, my boy, I must apologise. I meant to be here when you woke up." Harry could see the tension in the tired kindly face. He flushed, feeling vaguely guilty, staring down at his fingers.

He couldn't meet Dumbledore's eyes.

He couldn't explain it. But he knew that Professor Dumbledore could read people's minds just like Voldemort. 

"It was Voldemort, Professor. Possessing Quirrell!" He blurted out.

Dumbledore sighed. "I was afraid of that."

_ Then why didn't you do anything about it?  _ Harry bit his lips, pushing that thought down. Anger welled in him regardless. Dumbledore had known, and he had done nothing. 

He told Dumbledore in halting sentences what had happened. When he came to the part after the body bind curse, when Voldemort had hit him with the memory spell, his breath caught. He couldn't talk about it - the memories. His or Voldemort's. It felt wrong, like, he was spilling someone's secrets.

"He took the Stone and hit me with a sleeping charm."

He summarised instead. He lied.

Dumbledore seemed to buy the lie, but he looked disappointed. Like Harry had failed his test somehow. Harry couldn't help but be grateful that at least Dumbledore wasn't looking at him, the way he had looked at child Voldemort in his memories. Like a thief. Except Dumbledore didn't know how Harry had scurried and stowed away broken bits of Dudley's old toys; or how he'd stolen Piers' favourite yellow crayon after he'd kicked him one time too many. 

He had a lot of questions, but he was unsatisfied with Dumbledore's answers. Harry felt lied to; then again, hadn't he lied to Dumbledore? Maybe he deserved it.

But somethings rankled.

"Wait, you are saying my mother's love protected me? Then what did Voldemort mean when he said they were some sort of 'blood wards'?"

"When did he tell you this?" Dumbledore asked sharply, staring at Harry with an expression that made him panic.

"Right after he hit me with the body bind curse. He said he didn't have time to figure them out." 

Dumbledore regarded him quietly for so long that it made him uncomfortable, before suggesting, "You may be tired and forgetting important details. Perhaps, we should use a Pensieve?" At Harry's questioning expression, Dumbledore explained, "it extracts a copy of your memory-"

"No! No! I am not letting my head get messed up again. Absolutely not." Harry snapped before he could stop himself. Did the whole magical community think it was okay to swap memories just like that? 

"What I mean is," he babbled "I don't want to mess with my head - the scar, it has been hurting, since then. I'll tell you anything that I remember later."

_ Why you manipulative little boy.  _ He ignored that voice in his head.

"It's completely painless," Dumbledore offered but didn't push much. 

It was only as Dumbledore was leaving that Harry blurted out the question that had been plaguing him.

"Why didn't he just kill me?" 

"You must not think like that, Harry," Dumbledore said grimly. "Perhaps the protection given to you by your mother's love was too much for him to overcome." 

__

_ That was utter bollocks. Harry had been helpless.  _

"But it would be best for you to not worry about it, Harry. You are safe and sound, that is all that matters." Dumbledore added, smiling at him.

_ Safe and sound because Voldemort did not want to kill him.  _ It wasn't much of a consolation. 

Ron was seething when he and Hermione came to see Harry. He sat listening restlessly through Harry's recounting of the events before bursting out.

"McGonagall took more points off us! Can you believe that! For hexing Neville apparently and not listening to her."

"It's not that simple, Ron," Hermione said primly which only set Ron off.

"Stop defending her, just because she's a teacher, Hermione! We told her! And what was she going to do? Nothing!"

But Harry understood that Hermione had figured it out - that niggling detail about the Mirror. 

"No, she's right," Harry started explaining, but when Ron turned even more splotchy red with anger, Hermione snapped, "If Harry hadn't been there, Professor Quirrell - You Know Who wouldn't have got the Stone out of the Mirror. Isn't that what Professor Dumbledore told Harry? That only a person, who wanted to find the Stone but not use it could get to it. You Know Who wouldn't have gotten through that stage." Hermione looked at Harry sadly. 

"what are you going on about!" Ron was still seething.

"That it was my fault that Voldemort got the Stone," Harry said quietly.

"NO, IT WASN'T!" Ron turned, shouting at Hermione.

"Oh, honestly Ron, stop being an idiot. I am not saying it was Harry's fault. It was all of us. We didn't trust -"

They get thrown out of the infirmary soon after for shouting. But Harry knows Hermione is right.

It was his fault. 

* * *

The last few days of the term went too slowly for Harry's liking. Rumours were flying thick, but most of the students thought it was just Quirrell, who had got to the Philosopher's Stone, not Voldemort. 

_ "Did you hear about how Potter tried to stop Quirrell from taking the Philosopher's Stone?" _

_ "Yeah, but apparently it had something to do with You Know Who." _

_ "Please, he's lying! Probably wants the attention. You Know Who possessing Q…Q…Q…Quirrell?" _

_ "He did get away with the Stone." _

__

_ "Yeah, but have you heard how that was Potter's fault. He apparently-" _

Harry kept his head down and didn't bother correcting anyone. The Gryffindors seemed to think that their failure to stop Quirrell was some sort of slap against their House's credentials. They rallied around Neville when he earned them a few points at the end of year feast, even though it didn't really help. They were dead last anyway. 

__

_ So bravery only counts when you win House points. _ Harry thought sullenly as he stabbed at the food at the end of the year feast. He couldn't wait for the year to end. 

* * *

He should have known better. Sure, the last few days at Hogwarts had been full of jeering and snide remarks, but anything was better than the Dursleys; especially, the Dursleys, who were furious with him. 

It wasn't even his fault. How was he to blame that the Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, had chosen to show up, unannounced, at his doorstep, one day into the summer holidays? 

"Oh, dear, I hope I haven't caused too much trouble for you?" Fudge was still staring warily towards the house where they had left a rapidly purpling Uncle Vernon. 

"It'll be alright," Harry said dully. He wasn't sure how bad it would be. Cornelius Fudge was at least wearing a muggle pinstriped lime green suit. However, his calling card had hovered mid-air in front of Uncle Vernon's nose.

"Are they- are they always like this?" Fudge asked hesitantly.

_ Pity. Great, just what Harry needed. _

"Why are you here, Minister?" Harry asked, steering the conversation away from his relatives. 

"Oh, that! Nothing really, Harry. Just thought we'd have a chat." Fudge said, brightening up.

Cornelius Fudge for all his kindly air was here on an agenda. Dumbledore hadn't told Harry what his plans were much to Harry's frustration. But Cornelius Fudge was a wealth of information. Harry learnt that Dumbledore was insisting that the Ministry take the possibility that Voldemort was back seriously.

"You can see why we wouldn't want to announce Dumbledore's suspicions to the general public, Harry. Mass pandemonium would break out! We wouldn't want that. Not so soon after the election."

Harry wanted to laugh. He couldn't wrap his head around it all, but he was getting a sense that Fudge was saying Voldemort being back was bad for politics.

"I mean I am not insinuating like some people you were lying Harry; no, of course not! But it's possible you were mistaken. Quirrell could have been pretending. And you've been around magic for just a year now." Fudge didn't really notice how Harry's hands were clenching into fists, and he continued blithely. "Which I now think is quite unfortunate, Harry! Many a magical couple would have gladly welcomed you into their homes. I don't know why Dumbledore insisted you should grow up with… them." 

The anger that had been building as he was listening to Fudge left him. 

"I could have…I could have gone somewhere else?" Harry had never thought about it being a possibility.

"Well, of course! Any number of wizarding families would have opened their homes and hearts to you. I bet we could have easily traced a magical relative. The Potters are an old wizarding family, after all! I know the Ministry should have insisted, but Bagnold was Prime Minister then. And I know we shouldn't talk ill of the departed, but he really had no backbone! He went along with Dumbledore on nearly everything. And Dumbledore was so insistent that you should grow up with your mothers' muggle relatives. Now if it had been me, I would have made sure you were properly cared for. It's a shame..."

But Harry tuned him out as he tried to wrap his head around what he had learnt. 

_ Dumbledore had left him with the Dursleys? Why would he? Did he have no idea what they were like?  _

__

He was so taken up by the thought, he didn't really argue when Fudge brought the conversation back to Voldemort.

"I just want to stress that it would be better if we were discrete, Harry. The Aurors are searching for that rotten Quirrell, and once we have him, we'll know how exactly he fooled you. I hope you will trust the Ministry." 

"The Aurors?"

"They are like muggle police." Fudge shook his head sadly. "I am truly sorry you had to grow up ignorant of your heritage, Harry." 

_ Pity. He didn't need Fudge's pity. He wasn't less because of his background. He would show him. He would show them all! _

__

_ Anger welled in him, and he nearly yelled at the still babbling Minister, but a thought came to him suddenly. _

"Minister Fudge, I wanted to ask you a favour."

"Of course, Harry! Anything the Ministry can do for the Boy Who Lived." Fudge beamed, even as Harry wanted to scowl at the moniker. 

But Harry needed Fudge on his side. "I can't do any magic you know while I am here. I was wondering if I could have some sort of an exception?" 

He said in a rush before Fudge could refuse. "I don't want to do any spells that would hurt the muggles, Minister. Just protective shield spells and things like that. So that I can learn more about my…heritage. It's hard to catch up in school." 

"Yes," Fudge agreed. "the ones with muggle backgrounds usually have trouble." Harry didn't bother correcting him even though he knew Hermione would have aced their year in every way. 

Fudge considered it for a few minutes then said brightly. "Well, you know, this is highly irregular. But I don't have the heart to refuse your request. Especially with those muggles! I'll see what I can do. Use this allowance wisely. Get ahead in your schoolwork. Don't you worry about Quirrell and Professor Dumbledore's paranoia over You Know Who."

A trade then. Harry's silence about Voldemort in exchange for a free pass to perform under-age magic. The question was, did he take it? Then again, Dumbledore hadn't asked him to take a stand.

"of course Minister Fudge. Thank you." 

He could now defend himself if Voldemort showed up! As Harry walked back to the house, he couldn't help but feel satisfied at the thought.

_ No, it's because you manipulated the situation entirely to get what you wanted.  _

He tried to ignore the dark, vicious voice deep in his soul that was so pleased with him. 

* * *

Not that it had helped. The stupid creature had shown up ruining Dursley's dinner party. While Harry had Fudge's word that he could use magic and the Ministry would overlook it, he didn't have his wand on him. Now not only were his school supplies and wand still locked up, but Vernon had also locked him up in the bedroom and barred the windows. 

To top it off the horrible nightmares, he had been having…

He groaned and squished his head further into his pillow to stop all the depressing thoughts in his head.

"Aren't you too prepubescent for teenage melodrama?" 

Harry flipped around, trying to scramble off the bed and reach his glasses on the dresser simultaneously. But his quilt came alive twisting up after him, slinking over his legs and elbows, pulling him up till he was seated upright against the headboard, then wrapping him up hip to feet, like a mummy holding him securely. Harry gulped, clenching his fists. He was trapped. Voldemort was a blurry shape at the foot of his bed, but there was no escaping his laughter. 

Glasses were slipped gently over his nose, even as Voldemort sat down on the bed next to him, leaning on his hand, thrown casually over Harry's bound feet. 

"Hello, Harry," Voldemort said, with a smile. 

A tall, pale young boy, 17 or 18 at best, with curly dark black hair and serious grey eyes; Voldemort had already used the Philosopher's Stone to make himself a new body. 

Harry looked away, not really surprised to see this form. On and off and increasingly so, he had been getting flashes of memory and dreams from Voldemort. He had tried to write it off as a bad nightmare as he had watched Voldemort wrought himself a new body but now…

"Nothing to say? No inane questions of how I got through all of your beloved Headmaster's protections and how I can do this." He tapped the edge of Harry's nose with his bare index finger, then only laughed, pulling at the strand of Harry's hair when Harry snarled at him. He held his hand out in front of Harry' nose. The skin was unblemished; not a single burn mark. Harry's scar didn't hurt at all. 

"My, you really don't look well. Those muggles aren't starving you, are they?" Voldemort asked, offhand but the mirth fell away from his face as he looked closer at Harry's drawn face.

He looked around the room, his eyes taking in Hedwig locked in her cage and freezing on the catflap on his door and his barred window. 

"Tell me what happened," Voldemort asked, voice gone scary quiet. His eyes gleamed, red streaks crisscrossing the grey.

"NONE OF YOUR BLOODY CONCERN. GET-"

But Voldemort's hand shot out, viper quick, wrapping around Harry's throat. "I may tolerate a lot of your cheek, Harry." He said quietly. "But it wouldn't be wise to cross me.  ** Tell Me. ** " He let go, and Harry coughed, taking in huge gasps of air, spluttering with rage and helplessness.

"No?" Voldemort asked, looking at Harry's mutinous expression. He rose up, running his hands over his robes to get rid of non-existent creases. "Well, in that case, I am going to go downstairs, and strip the flesh of your muggle relatives, layer by layer, till I have my answers."

Harry had a split second to realise that it was not an empty threat when it came to Voldemort. The door had sprung open, the locks tearing out of the wall, and Voldemort was already striding out before Harry found his voice.

__ "No, No! Stop, you can't come in here and-"

He swallowed, suddenly remembering how easily Voldemort had brushed away the death of his parents. It was useless pointing out to Voldemort that it was wrong to murder people casually. "Stop, I don't want this!"

Voldemort turned around. Harry expected to see triumph, but Voldemort only looked flatly back at him. 

"I do not care what you want."

Harry gulped. He was going to have to make a deal-with Voldemort. 

"I- I'll tell you, what you want to know."

Voldemort seemed to consider it for a second before stepping back into the room. The door silently pulling shut behind him.

He stretched himself out on the floor, back to the bedframe, and half turned over his shoulder to listen as Harry talked. Harry couldn't figure it out. The casual way in which Voldemort was seated; the way he was paying attention to all that Harry was saying; the way he was acting as if this was all…normal. Why didn't he just do his mind reading thing; why force Harry to recount it? He felt strange sitting like this – having an almost normal conversation with Voldemort. Surely, this was not the way things were supposed to go between him and the Dark Lord. 

"I thought you sent him…that creature, that house-elf," Harry mumbled at the end. Voldemort had quickly figured out what the creature was.

"A house-elf to disturb your muggles' dinner party? Please, Harry, I have standards. This sounds like a petty pureblood prank."

"Yes, of course, you are all about killing babies." Harry gasped, then cringed, fully expecting to be seized by his neck again. But Voldemort only smiled. It was odd for Harry to see that all together pleasant expression on Voldemort's face. Before it had been creepy when Voldemort was possessing Quirrell, but this face suited Voldemort all too much. He wondered if this had been Voldemort's real face. 

"I do not expect you to agree, but I did have a just provocation."

"Really, what did I do. Dribble on you?"  _ shut up, shut up, shut up. _ But the words just came. 

But Voldemort's smile only grew more pronounced. 

"Well, this is surprising. Dumbledore hasn't told you." 

"Told me what?" Harry hated that he was curious. He knew he shouldn't ask Voldemort anything and yet Dumbledore hadn't given him a clear answer.

"The Prophecy, of course," Voldemort said, slowly savouring Harry's look of confusion. 

Harry had trouble keeping up as Voldemort laid out the contents of the Prophecy. Well, part of it anyway. The portion, Severus had heard and reported back. Yes, Severus had been a Death Eater. Did Harry know Severus had been in love with his mother? Practically begged to save her life. So that's why he hadn't wanted to kill her. But she wouldn't move. He had no choice! And yet, her sacrifice had triggered the Blood Wards, dark protective magic that had wrapped around Harry that night and now surrounded his house here as well. Probably, why the old coot had wanted him to live here. Mind you, it wasn't infallible. For instance, it wouldn't work against him anymore.

Harry reeled under too much information. He wanted to deny all of it, but he knew instinctively that Voldemort was telling him the truth. Not all of it, perhaps twisting it, but the truth, nevertheless. What had Dumbledore said? " _ Truth was a beautiful and terrible thing and therefore, must be treated with caution?" _

__

_ Is that why Dumbledore hadn't told him all this? Is that why Voldemort had just thrown caution to the air and told him all of it? _

"Why tell me all this? What do you want from me? I am always going to hate you. I am not going to forgive you." At Voldemort's smirk, Harry added angrily. "And you aren't looking for my forgiveness anyway. You killed my parents. Why are we even having this conversation?" 

Voldemort shrugged, all too human as his head fell back against the bed. "And what would you have us do? A duel to the death to settle your revenge and the Prophecy?" he asked, turning his head sideways to stare up at Harry. 

"Yes," Harry said, willing himself to look at Voldemort's open expression and not turn away. He expected Voldemort to laugh, but he didn't. Just shook his head and asked him seriously. 

"You won't have a chance. Do you know any fatal spells? Would you even be able to defend yourself? Because I was there when Quirrell taught you defence and between you and me, he was useless. Besides, you haven't exactly applied yourself, have you, Harry, in Hogwarts?"

_ Except at Quidditch.  _ Voldemort added as an afterthought.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Harry snapped. "Maybe I'll get lucky twice." Voldemort didn't even bother to correct him, but Harry knew it was impossible.

The blood wards were useless now. Harry felt helpless, trussed up like a chicken.

"What do you want?" Harry asked again. 

Voldemort regarded Harry for long seconds which unnerved him. His grey eyes were clear, there was no red gleam that filled them when he was angry. 

"I want to know why we share a connection," Voldemort said finally. "Aren't you curious? You still see my memories, don't you? Sensing at times, even my emotions?"

"No," Harry lied, then flushed at Voldemort's knowing smile. He knew though he had denied it that for the past month he had kept slipping into Voldemort's dreams-nightmares; Nightmares centring on the past decade. Harry had been made all too aware of the hellish non-corporeal state that Voldemort had existed in. Surely death would have been preferable and yet Voldemort had survived. The quick, intense flashes of emotion were even more disturbing though rarer. He'd experienced Voldemort's awe as the Stone wrought him his body; he'd felt the bouts of anger that routinely seized Voldemort. Sometimes…sometimes, he couldn't tell the difference between his and Voldemort's emotions.

His attention snapped back to Voldemort as he continued, "We share a lot in common, Harry. Strange isn't it, that the Prophecy should twist my hand to turn you into my mirror image? I am curious to know what the Prophecy foretold in detail. I am all the more curious to know more about you. I think the same must be true for you. If it makes you feel better, you can think of it as finding out your enemy's weaknesses."

"I am nothing like you. I don't want to know anything about you." 

"Your childish refusal to acknowledge our connection doesn't change the fact it exists."

"CHILDISH?" Harry spluttered. "CONNECTION? Fine, we share a connection. So what? You care, suddenly? I don't need your pity."

"I told you already, I don't care about what you want." Voldemort snapped, the red gleam sparkling briefly in his eyes. Harry felt the quilt loosen its death grip on him.

"I have to leave. I will deal with your relatives on my way out." Voldemort said, standing up gracefully from the floor, even as Harry scrambled up.

"NO!" Harry said, gripping at Voldemort's robe before he had thought it through. "You -," he swallowed around the word 'promised'. "you said you wouldn't hurt them."

Voldemort stepped close and pushed Harry's chin up to stare at his face. "Harry," he said in a mock chiding voice. "Do not lie! I said no such thing." 

"I WON'T LET YOU!" Harry shouted desperately.

_ How could he have trusted the Dark Lord? He was so stupid.  _

"Then you had better come down and stop me," Voldemort said, smiling even as he easily pulled away from Harry.

* * *

Of course, he had no plans to kill the boy's muggle relatives. He may have murdered Harry's parents, but these muggles had nurtured the anger and darkness in Harry. If anyone deserved to hurt them, it was Harry. 

He wasn't going to point this out now. There would be time for it later. He was here to win the boy's trust and hurting his muggle relatives, vile as they were, wouldn't help.

It was stupidly easy to get them to fall into obedience. Like all muggles, they were cowards; he didn't even have to use much magic. Just a bit - to show he meant it when he said that they would regret their treatment of his boy. It set them scrambling over themselves, to take down the window grill, unlock and carry Harry's belongings up to his room and put large platters of food in front of him to eat. 

" ** I bet you expect me to be grateful! ** " Harry hissed. Petunia stifled a cry of alarm and ran out of the room. Harry stared after her in surprise. Parseltongue had slipped out, and he hadn't even realised the difference. Voldemort had thought he would be jealous to hear the gift in another, and yet Harry was his. It was but natural. 

" ** No, I expect you to remember, that they will have you believe - you are weak, you are useless, that you are a freak, ** " Voldemort replied in parseltongue, savouring the way Harry's attention turned towards him completely. " ** but you are the one, who has power over them. They only trample on you because you let them. ** " 

Harry ducked his head, half annoyed sibilants of parseltongue slipping out and he sounded so like an angry little snake in the moment, that Voldemort laughed.

Harry started, looking at him in suspicion, but Voldemort only smiled innocently at him, which seemed to make him angrier.

Yet as Harry nearly inhaled a plate of sandwiches only throwing baleful glances at him, Voldemort knew slowly but surely, he was going to spoil Dumbledore's plans of crafting his vanquisher. 

_ You are going to lose old man.  _

* * *

Harry hated to admit it, but his summer holidays improved vastly after Voldemort's visit. The Dursleys kept to themselves, he didn't have any chores and enjoyed complete freedom. He was able to write to Ron and Hermione, explaining the mix-up and was waiting at his front door when Mr Weasley, Ron and the twins showed up to take him to their home for the rest of the holidays. 

It was a tight fit in the old Ford Angelica, but they managed. Harry was beyond excited. He listened to the twins' talk of how fast the car could fly, heard all about Chudley Cannons' dismal performance and tried to soothe as best as he could Mr Weasley's worries about his relatives.

"I was hoping to speak to your uncle about the drilling machines. Imagine, drilling miles into the earth. I think the muggles could reach the very centre of the earth if they put their minds to it!"

"They don't like magic much"

"Oh, I understand completely. Imagine what a shock magic must be for them. We must take care that we treat them kindly."

"What about how they treat us?" Harry muttered under his breath but didn't press the point with Ron's father. It was obvious Mr. Weasley found all muggles and muggle things' fascinating'. 

The Burrow was completely different from Privet Drive. Molly Weasley welcomed him like he was Ron's long-lost twin and the entire Weasley clan treated him like family. They showered him with love, kindness and laughter. And yet ultimately, it left him jealous and angry. Mr. Weasley had explained the logic of the trace to Harry kindly and how it didn't work in magical homes, but Harry couldn't help but feel frustrated. He had to wheedle Fudge into letting him use magic even in self-defence like it was some big favour. But here in the Burrow, magic was everywhere and so common place, it made his heart ache. Fudge's words continued to haunt him.  _ He could have had all this. _ It didn't help that it was apparent from Molly's guarded questions, that she seemed aware that his family wasn't what it should be. He was pretty sure it was the reason he'd been invited for the stay. 

_ Then why had they left him with them? _ He thought viciously.  _ For his protection? From Voldemort who had torn through the protection at his first try with none of them even realising it? _

They didn't talk about Voldemort either. Ron was pretty certain, that his parents were mixed up in the resistance, but they were tight-lipped about it. "It's mum! She thinks we are too young to be part of it. Like You Know Who cares about age! He tried to kill you when you were a baby!" Ron said exasperated, after another failed attempt to get information from his mother.

Bill, his eldest brother, had a bit more information but nothing that was terribly useful. "The thing is Dumbledore wants to build up the old underground resistance against You Know Who. But it is difficult when there is no proof of his return. Harry's word is good enough with our lot," he said smiling at Harry. "but many are wondering why there is no evidence of death eater gatherings, no torture, no kidnappings, no death. It is hard to keep a resistance going when there's nothing to resist."

_ Unless, you counted the fact that Voldemort had ordered his relatives into providing him with three large meals a day.  _

Harry still hadn't told anyone about Voldemort. He didn't know how to start even though he knew the longer he waited, the more difficult it would be to explain. He knew it wasn't normal and he had even wondered if Voldemort had put some sort of spell on him to prevent him talking. But it didn't seem to come from any spell work, it felt more like a strange reluctance to divulge the shared bond to anyone. His mind was still trying to figure out the information overload that Voldemort had dumped on him. And ignoring as best as it could, the live wire connection, he sometimes felt ran between them. 

He was so preoccupied, he didn't pay enough attention to Molly Weasley's instructions on using the floo, and it was just his luck, he ended up in a sinister old shop. The sort of shop Molly Weasley would definitely not choose, but what really raised his hackles was the all too familiar voice at the shop counter. 

"You are certain, then? No such cup has passed through your shop?" It was Voldemort.

* * *

Harry desperately looked around, then slid into the double door wooden closet next to the fireplace. He could hear the conversation as they came closer. "No, sir. Nothing… nothing of that sort has been in here. I can show you our records." A reedy, clearly afraid voice answered. They were close now; through the crack, Harry saw a third man apart from Voldemort and the balding shopkeeper– a tall, well-dressed man, with nearly white-blonde hair. Malfoy's father. The resemblance to Draco was too obvious. 

_ Ron was right. He must be a death eater. _

Voldemort came closer, inspecting the various artefacts casually, even as the shopkeeper kept up a nervous explanation. Harry shut the closet completely, plunging himself in darkness. He gripped his wand, determined to make a run for it if Voldemort found him. 

"Mr Borgins if you could wrap this up for me?" Voldemort said abruptly from right outside the closet. Harry jumped. 

"Hangman's Lamp? Why yes, of course." The sound of something being picked up, then scuttling feet could be heard. Harry sighed in relief.

The cupboard, however, was swung open the next second. Harry did manage to take Malfoy by surprise. A quick disarming charm and Malfoy's half-raised wand went hurtling out of his grasp into Harry's hand. Harry's heart raced as he faced Voldemort. Voldemort, who didn't look the least bit surprised to see him; Harry's resolve to make a run for it crumbled. 

Voldemort smirked at the older Malfoy's surprised expression, then gestured towards the front of the store. "Lucius, why don't you go distract Mr Borgins, while I lead our young intruder out unnoticed."

"But-" 

"Lucius," and Harry's spine crawled at the tone of Voldemort's voice. "you just got bested by a 12-year-old. I suggest you don't make matters worse." 

Lucius Malfoy bowed his head, glanced askance at Harry again but left. 

Voldemort plucked both wands out of Harry's hand and pulled Harry out of the shop 'Borgin and Burkes' (the lettering outside the shop read), an iron grip on his shoulder and frog marched him quickly down the street that was definitely not Diagon Alley. Voldemort ducked into a narrow side lane and then into a dilapidated tea shop, the peeling letters read 'Rose's Tearoom'; it was quiet and cool, and mostly empty. A bit older than Harry, a young girl showed them to a table right at the end. She smiled, all dimples, at Voldemort as he ordered tea and left, sparing Harry hardly a glance. 

"If you wanted to meet, you could have just owled," Voldemort said finally. 

"You know what happened. You can see every bloody thought in my head!" Harry glared at him. 

Voldemort must have known all along Harry was hiding in that closet. He had probably felt it; the exact moment when Harry had stumbled into Borgin and Burkes by mistake.

"Not every thought. I've put shields up to stop most of the endless chatter that comes from your end. Otherwise, I would have strangled you, just to stop hearing your endless Quidditch centric daydreams." 

Harry was too curious to feel embarrassed. "Wait, you can shield your mind? How do I do that?" 

_ "Occlumency," _ Voldemort said, looking straight into Harry's eyes. 

The word seemed to make something in his brain click into place. Suddenly, Harry just knew what Voldemort was talking about. The theory if not the actual practice of it flitted right into his brain. He gripped the table, closing his eyes, as his brain seemed to reorder itself around the information.

Voldemort nodded as if he was satisfied with the result. "Handy little side effect of the connection isn't it?"

Harry was conflicted. He knew he should refuse Voldemort's knowledge. But he knew how useful the information he'd received. "So, now what? We have tea and catch up?" He said instead.

"Why not?" Voldemort asked. "For instance, do you know I am putting myself back together?" he said conversationally. "You must have felt it last week."

Voldemort was talking nonsense. Yet Harry remembered t _ he  _ pain from last week _.  _ It had hit in the middle of the day. Luckily, he'd been able to get to the bathroom and lock himself in with a silencing charm for the worst of it. He had fallen right into some old repressed memory and had wept bitterly at the thought of having killed that old Albanian muggle villager. It had taken him a while to separate himself from the Voldemort in the memory and to convince himself he wasn't the murderer. Even then, he'd felt sick from guilt for most of the week and had a hard time escaping Molly's mothering tendency. 

"You can't occlude when it happens, can you?" Sure, Voldemort had told him about 'putting himself back together' almost casually, but Harry knew there was some deep magic involved. There was a reason Voldemort was sharing this information. Harry's skin crawled as he felt the ghost of Voldemort's screams. Those memories had physically hurt.

Voldemort shook his head. "I wouldn't, even if I could. Believe it or not, I wouldn't be able to do it without you." He was mocking again. 

"Well then, all the more reason why I should learn how to occlude so that I can stop 'helping' you," Harry said, angrily. 

"Ah, but don't you want your revenge, Harry?" 

Harry ignored the smirk. "How would helping you, putting yourself back together, help kill you?"

Voldemort leaned forward and hissed low and soft. " ** A long time ago, I hid parts of me away. When the killing curse backfired ** ," he said gesturing at Harry's scar, " ** it didn't kill me because it didn't hit all of me. If you want to kill me – to really kill me, you will have to wait till I am whole again ** ."

Harry gaped. Voldemort was doing it again! Distracting him with information. Why would Voldemort tell him this voluntarily? Especially, if the Prophecy was true. And what did he mean by ' _ parts of him _ ?'

"Why would you even want to be whole again? Immortality isn't that your big thing." 

A slow, sure smile graced Voldemort's face. "You've been reading up on me." 

Harry annoyed looked away. It had rankled what Voldemort had said about Harry not knowing enough to fight him.

_ What if he had? Didn't Voldemort say he should get to know his enemies? He had written to Hermione to borrow her copy of 'Dark Lords of the 20th Century'. Not that it was very useful.  _

__

"You're right, it has very little factual information and is too biased to be of any critical value," Voldemort said, padding up Harry's thoughts. Their attention was diverted as the door was flung open. Lucius Malfoy strode in, slightly out of breath and panicked, though he seemed to recover as soon as he saw them looking at him. 

"Lucius," Voldemort said, reaching for the cup of tea "you are aware of our young intruder, yes? I believe your son is in the same year at Hogwarts."

"Yes, my Lord. I –"

Voldemort cut him off. "Now that you are acquainted, perhaps you could make a quick stop at Morgan's for a few books on introductory Dark Arts and Wizarding History. Something on your son's level. Probably a bit advanced for you, but you'll just have to catch up, Harry." He ignored the way Harry bristled at that and turned his attention back at Lucius. "You had better hurry. You wouldn't want to keep Narcissa and your son waiting."

To his credit, though Lucius turned a pasty yellow, he didn't argue. He left almost immediately. 

"You enjoyed that," Voldemort said, putting down the teacup and looking squarely at Harry.

Harry ducked his head, annoyed at Voldemort for sensing his mood but not bothering to deny it. It was true enough. Draco Malfoy had annoyed them to no end going on about how great his father was, all of last year. And here, he was practically being treated like an errand boy by Voldemort who looked no older than 17-year-old.

"you haven't answered my question." Harry countered.

Voldemort shrugged. 

"I do care about immortality, but splitting myself up had a rather unfortunate side effect. That thing you keep accusing me of - Insanity." He smirked. "I only realised that after I met you, Harry. Your very existence is proof of my instability."

Harry snorted. "So what? I help put you back together again, and all your mad urges to kill babies and muggleborns disappears?" He didn't believe that.

"You help put me back together," Voldemort repeated Harry's words. "I become mortal and somewhat less improbable to kill. Of course, that's supposing that you can actually best me in a duel."

Harry didn't know how to respond.

Voldemort thanked the young girl with a smile that left her starry-eyed and chatted amiably with her as she rang up their bill. By the time they left, Harry knew - Greta was 14, had never been to Hogwarts, (" _ not a squib, mind you. The old man didn't have the money to pay for both me and Ruthie for that fancy school _ "), her great ambition was to revamp the dessert menu – (" _ and by Merlin, she would get her mama to see sense in it one of these days" _ ) and of course, they could use their floo for popping into Knockturn any time they wanted (" _ for a reasonable fee that was _ . _ " _ )

Harry had also learnt that  _ The Dark Lords of the 20th Century  _ was at least right when it said that Voldemort had an almost magical charisma that pulled people towards him.

Lucius was quick, reappearing by their side, just at the edge of Knockturn Alley. (Voldemort had explained that Knockturn Alley had all the intresting old magic, but it had fared badly next to the commercialised family-friendly ware offered by Diagon Alley.) He had a couple of books wrapped in plain brown paper, which he handed over to Harry with no small amount of disbelief.

"Your attempt to duel with me will be embarrassingly short if you don't learn anything beyond that static rot that Hogwarts teaches," Voldemort noted lightly.

Harry had wanted to refuse the books, but Lucius Malfoy's almost bugged eyed horror, when he just accepted the books, was too good to pass up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of those who have commented, bookmarked, left kuddos on this work. It means a lot!

Second-year at Hogwarts started out dismally with Ron and Harry crashlanding into the Whomping Willow. 

“I knew for sure we’d only get detentions. No way were they going to expel us!” Ron ended every retelling of the incident crowing in the same way. But, Harry could only remember the fear that had gripped him at the thought of being expelled from Hogwarts. 

As such, it only strengthened his resolve not to tell Dumbledore about Voldemort. Not like that was hard. He was pretty sure Dumbledore was avoiding him in the first place. Besides, it was best if Harry stayed away from the resistance. Voldemort, for all his talk of shielding, wouldn’t miss something like that in his brain.

All summer, Harry had been mulling over all that had happened, and the feeling of helplessness had only grown. He didn’t know how he could defeat Voldemort. Harry hated to admit it, but Voldemort’s memories from his first year in Hogwarts made him feel ashamed. Voldemort had taken on Hogwarts and Slytherin, an orphan and a supposed ‘mudblood’, with all of his raw ambition and hunger to learn all things magic. But what had Harry done? He had coasted through the year content to hang on to Hermione’s coattails. If he was to defeat Voldemort, he couldn’t afford to do that any longer. 

As such, he began paying better attention to his coursework, even potions, scouring the library for books on bonds and shared memories, and in the privacy of his bed, late at night, tentatively reading the books Lucius Malfoy had picked out for him. 

Much to Hermione’s surprise, he did steadily get better in his classes. Partly this was from his newfound ambition to catch up, but partly, as much as Harry didn’t want to admit it, it was a result of his bond with Voldemort. It wasn’t that he suddenly knew everything Voldemort knew, or information just sprang up in his head. It was more that he picked up things faster – as if he was rereading something that he had read before. 

His interest in coursework also meant that when Snape used esoteric Potions trivia to dock points off him, he was even more aware that Snape was a rotten and biased Slytherin. 

“I bet Snape’s nastier because Lockhart got the Defence job. He must have thought he had the job in the bag for sure after saving Harry’s life last year.” Ron said as they sat trying to make headway into the bulky Potions assignment.

“He didn’t save my life.” Harry snapped. Hermione and Ron traded glances over his head but wisely didn’t comment. Snape had taken 15 points of him in the last class alone. 

Harry knew he should be thinking of ways to block Voldemort from his head; ways in which he could fight him. But his mind was increasingly fixated on Snape and getting him to pay. How dare he treat him like dirt after what he’d done? 

Nearly a month into the Second Year, Harry realised just how badly the connection could affect him, when he woke up in the Infirmary, with a pale drawn-out Ron and Hermione crying in earnest at his bedside.

“It was bad. You were screaming, mate.” Ron said quietly. “Wailing. You kept clawing at your scar, and it was already bleeding badly, and you kept saying,” He hesitated before saying in a rush “you kept saying that you were sorry for killing the girl.”

“We couldn’t calm you down; you were awake, but your mind, it was still caught in whatever horrible nightmare you were having. Madam Pomfrey gave you a dreamless sleep potion, but you were crying even after that; she had to tie you down with a spell so that you wouldn’t hurt yourself. Oh, Harry, it was horrible!” Hermione cried, stroking his hand.

Dumbledore had been worried when he came to see him. For the first time, he spoke of curse scars and magical transference, but so vaguely that Harry felt confident when he said he felt nothing of that sort. 

He’d let Ron thump his back and let Hermione cling to him and cry. He told them that he’d had a really vivid nightmare.

He didn’t know what else to say to comfort them. How could he explain that it wasn’t a nightmare, that he was relieving a teenage Voldemort killing a young girl with some sort of a giant magic snake? 

For the next few weeks, he felt nothing from the connection. It was entirely muted from Voldemort’s end so much so that Harry had to concentrate heavily, clearing his mind, even to feel the slightest spark in the bond between them. It was ironic that Harry picked up the first step to Occlusion, just as the skill became useless for him. Voldemort was not paying attention to the bond. Maybe if they left it alone, long enough, it would just go away on its own, and everything would go back to normal.

Hermione, however, had to ruin his optimism. She cornered him in the Common Room, with an air that demanded answers. “All right, Harry, enough is enough.” 

“I don’t know what you mean.” He told her, cross that she was blocking his view of Colin Creevey. He was waiting for the right moment when he could put a finger zapping curse on Colin’s camera. 

_ That should stop that stupid boy from sticking that infernal device in front of his face.  _

Hermione grabbed him by his robe sleeves to get him to look at her. Harry blinked. She looked worried…worried for him. 

“The nightmare- you’ve been moping for weeks now!” she insisted. “You’re acting as if it was your fault and you’re so angry, but it wasn’t real!” Harry wanted to argue, but she wasn’t done “You have been snapping at all of us. You made Ginny cry. Ron’s been furious with you, and the worst thing is you haven’t even noticed!” 

Had he made Ginny cry? He barely noticed the younger girl. Harry winced.  _ Right, that was the problem.  _

He made an effort to be more mindful of his friends after Hermione’s lecture. He even managed to show up at Nick’s 500th Deathday bash, though he left early, leaving Ron and Hermione talking to the Headless Hunt. He took the longer more circular route back to the Great Hall, slipping into long-forgotten hallways and flitting across passages that only existed if one thought them up. 

_ Another side effect of the bond, _ he thought bitterly. 

Voldemort had spent hours systematically combing through every inch of the Castle and its grounds.  _ He knew Hogwarts like the palm of his hand. _

__

_ He had been looking for something.  _ The thought made him pause. It had come to him suddenly…like before. 

“ ** bring not kill, bring not kill, bring not kill, the Heir wants him, alive not dead alive not dead ** .” Harry looked around wildly.  _ That _ voice wasn’t in his head. 

His feet quickened, following, as the voice called out from the very walls of the passageway.

He hesitated when it led him all the way to the abandoned girl’s bathroom on the second floor. He had figured out the girl in his dream – Moaning Myrtle, that ghost that haunted the second floor’s girl’s bathroom. He had been avoiding the whole area and had bolted from the Deathday party today– irrationally afraid that the ghost would identify him as the killer. But the bathroom was empty except for the exposed large pipe, where one of the sinks should have been. 

He could hear the garbled hissing coming from deep within.

Harry groaned, unsure if he should continue. Hermione was right - He was acting weird! Who trusted a disembodied voice?

Still, he followed, slipping and sliding through tunnel after tunnel of darkness, till he emerged in a huge cavernous room, with enormous pillars flanked with twisting carved wood. He caught only a hint of slipping and sliding scales before a hand clamped down over his glasses.

* * *

Harry fought. He pushed his nails into the hand, covering his eyes and the one clamping his chest and elbowed hard upward against the ribs he could feel behind him. Harry kicked back with his leg and had only a moment to enjoy the startled yelp before he was knocked square off his feet. He went down hard, hitting the ground with a nasty bump but the hand on his chest drove him relentlessly downward till he was flat on the floor and he was boxed in with knees on either side. The hand covering his eyes only left his face when his spectacles were plucked off, and he heard the sound of them being crushed right next to his head. But Harry didn’t need his glasses to see Voldemort leaning over him, panting, clearly winded by the attack.

“Eyes on me at all times, Harry. Merlin, you fight like a muggle.” He complained. 

Harry wanted to look away, just to spite him, but something frighteningly large came bounding up, sliding and slithering around them. As he heard the garbled “kill, not kill mumble” he let Voldemort cover his eyes with his hand. 

“I hate you,” Harry said, trying to project all the horror he’d felt in seeing Voldemort’s memory. Whatever ritual Voldemort had done had taken a huge mental toll on Harry, and having the connection go dead, between them, in the weeks after, had made the feeling worse. It was almost as if Voldemort had pushed it all onto Harry and then closed the door leaving him to deal with it. 

But the connection between them had come alive again and the despair Harry had been feeling lessened. 

“Yes, I am well aware of that.” Voldemort’s all too familiar mocking voice ghosted over his face. Harry wasn’t sure if he was answering his words or thoughts. “Now stay quiet, while I teach my Basilisk not to eat you up.”

* * *

“My family heirloom has been stolen,” Voldemort said, as he paced in front of Harry. He’d mended Harry’s glasses, but his pacing still made Harry feel dizzy especially as the giant talking basilisk kept circling Voldemort. 

_ What family? _ Harry thought darkly. 

Voldemort was still talking. “The Slytherin Locket is proof of my heritage. It is an heirloom of immense power and -“

“You stupidly put a piece of yourself in it, didn’t you?” 

Voldemort smiled nastily at Harry. 

“The truth is you will benefit most from our search for the Locket. Regulus Black had stolen the Locket, with no true knowledge of its power, just to spite me. The ingrate died soon after, sadly not by my hands. I am certain he wouldn’t have trusted it with a stranger. Which means, it should be bequeathed to his closest living relative,” Voldemort paused, drawing it out as if it was significant “his elder brother Sirius Black.” 

Harry sighed. 

_ Right was he supposed to be surprised? Impressed? Voldemort sure knew how to overdo dramatical narratives at times. Who the hell was Sirius Black?  _

“Only the man who supposedly betrayed your family’s secret location to me,” Voldemort said, grinning triumphantly at Harry’s shock. 

It wasn’t even a secret. The story was well known. Sirius Black, best friend to James Potter and Godfather to the Boy Who Lived, had betrayed them that night. Hadn’t he killed Peter Pettigrew, his other close friend, the very next day, along with a dozen other muggles and then stood amidst the dead bodies and laughed? 

Harry felt rage and guilt as Voldemort laid out the facts. His parents had died to protect him, and yet he had never bothered to find out the details. 

“Well if he is in wizarding prison, there’s nothing I can do to help, is there? You probably could get your precious Death Eater to tell you where stupid heirloom is.” Harry snapped. 

“That’s just it, Harry. Sirius Black was never a Death Eater.” 

Voldemort had a plan; a plan that set Harry’s sense of adventure buzzing. It would take time, but if all went well, Harry would know for sure who had betrayed his parents that night and Voldemort would have a chance to interrogate Black about the Slytherin Locket.

It raised Harry’s hackles, though. He was conspiring with his parent’s killer. He didn’t trust Voldemort at all, even though he said that the information had come to him through other Death Eaters. But if there was even the slightest chance that Sirius Black, his supposed Godfather, was innocent, he felt he owed it to his parents to find out. 

“How can you be in Hogwarts though?” The Chamber of Secrets was Slytherin’s domain, but it was surreal to think Voldemort could get into Hogwarts this easily. 

“I know all of Hogwart’s secrets. If it’s wasn’t for your precious Dumbledore, I’d have never left.” 

_ It’s the only home I’ve known, same as you. _

__

Harry opened his mouth, ready to argue with the thought but then looked away from Voldemort’s knowing smile. 

_ Whose fault is that?  _ He sends the thought out over their shared bond instead, but the usual viciousness he felt was missing. His parents were gone because of Voldemort, but was he responsible for Harry being left with the Dursleys? 

Voldemort only smiled, continuing to run a hand over the Basilisk, which had coiled up near him, almost lovingly. 

He had overextended himself in his attempt to merge with the soul shard in his diary. He knew he had left the boy to bear the brunt of it, but the depth and viciousness of Harry’s sorrow at the girl’s death had been too much for Voldemort and he had closed their connection, the moment, he was sure the ritual was successful. 

_ He’d released the Basilisk to convince the families of the pureblood Slytherins that he was the Heir. That he was good enough. His overwhelming feeling at her death had been disgust. Even for a muggle-born, she was inconsequential. And then worry had overtaken him, if the school closed down, he would have to go back to that horrible orphanage, and that was unacceptable.  _

But Harry in the dream had felt far more - horror and bitter remorse at the death of Myrtle. Voldemort hadn’t thought of the girl for years, yet, Harry’s emotions had burnt the name into his thoughts now. 

It was… _ mildly annoying. _

__

He would take his time before he attempted to merge another soul shard. In the meantime, he would track down his missing soul shards and put other plans in motion. 

Such as his plans for Harry. 

He didn’t strictly need to involve the boy in his plans regarding the Blacks, but it was an excellent excuse to keep him close.

The weeks in which he had shut the connection had felt like self-imposed torture at his end as well. Harry’s soul was a flame that Voldemort felt drawn to, and after eleven years of living hell, Voldemort could not deny himself.

It had been many years, since, Voldemort had felt the need to charm someone or gain their trust. Fear and intimidation had worked so well for him, that they had become his choicest weapons. 

And yet with Harry.

Voldemort felt almost indulgent as he watched Harry reach out a hand tentatively to touch his Basilisk, all the while hissing soothing nonsense at it.

* * *

The Basilisk, despite her chitter-chatter of murder and mayhem, had carried Harry up to surface with boundless enthusiasm. She had trailed out of the bathroom before he could order her back, and it was just Harry’s luck that Colin Creevey had come by at the same time.

Harry had frozen, memories of Myrtle’s death threatening to overwhelm him, but Voldemort had cut through his panic. He had come up behind them, peering suspiciously at the camera that Colin was still clutching. 

_ He is only petrified. Hardly dead. _

__

He had turned to Harry with a click of his heel.

_ Go before anyone sees you. I will take care of it. _

Much later, as Harry stood, staring guiltily at the words plastered on the wall “THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE”, Voldemort had cackled in his head as if the whole thing was a practical joke. 

* * *

Harry felt terrible when he thought of Colin, lying petrified in the Infirmary, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that the mandrake draught would soon put things right. He was all for keeping his head down and hoping that the Chamber business would die down. However, the school was abuzz with rumours and gossip and outlandish conspiracy theories. 

“Harry, the monster goes after muggle-borns! Of course, I am not going to let it go!” Hermione had sounded scandalised when Harry had made an attempt to steer her away from the topic.

“We only have Binns’ word for it. And it’s Binns! Even he said it was just stories.” Harry had remedied. 

_ ‘The tale has been bastardised to make Salazar come off worse. He was paranoid that the muggles someday would storm the Castle and you have to remember this was before the time of the large-scale muggle repellent spells. The Basilisk was the last deterrent against an invasion of the muggles, not muggleborns. Think about it! Why would you set a giant snake to individually pick and choose muggleborns to kill? It’s a creature meant for mass destruction. Wizards would quickly figure out that it could be killed with a rooster or made ineffective by blinding—such a silly story. _

__

_ Yeah? I wonder why people believed that rot. Surely, not because his Heir decided to pick on muggleborns using the Basilisk, right? That too, just so that he could cosy up to some stuffy Slytherins in Hogwarts. Such a dumbass. _

__

_ His scar had exploded in pain in response, but it had been worth it.’  _

But Hermione would not let it go, and she threw herself into researching the Chamber as if it was an academic project and Ron took it upon himself to come up with reason after reason as to why Malfoy was the Heir.

Harry knew Hermione was disappointed with his apparent disinterest, while Ron just could not understand why Harry wasn’t interested in solving a good mystery like last time. 

“Because we know what happened, last time! I am sitting this one out!” Harry had snapped. 

“Fine, not like we need your help.” Hermione had replied, with her insufferable know it all air that had annoyed Harry even further. 

“Harry is just glad that Colin is not stalking him anymore, isn’t that right, Harry?” 

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY, RON” Hermione and Harry had both shouted, but Ron was still howling in laughter.

“Oh come on, you remember Finch-Fletchley’s face when you said hi. It was priceless! He is convinced you are the Heir!” 

They came to somewhat of an unhappy truce after that. Hermione stopped pestering Harry to solve the Chamber mystery and he, in turn, didn’t ask any questions of her. He knew Ron was dying to tell him something, but he was adamant with wanting to know nothing at all.

Sure, he felt guilty and conflicted. But he had other more important things to worry about. His first task was to write to Fudge, thanking the Minister profusely for his kindness in making his muggle home more bearable by allowing him to do magic. Fudge wrote back almost immediately - a letter dripping with the Ministry’s magnanimous feelings towards Harry. Of course, Fudge would personally do all he could to help Harry reintegrate into the wizarding society. Despite only meeting Harry last summer, he had always felt like a father figure to him.

Harry had wanted to puke, burn the letter, hex Fudge, and wash his mind out with soap all at the same time. But he gritted his teeth and wrote back a letter again conveying to Fudge his heartfelt thanks. 

Task One of stroking Fudge’s ego and making him malleable to future suggestions was a roaring success. 

Harry had to switch from his research on bonds to research in greater detail Azkaban, the wizarding prison and the prison’s guards – the Dementors. The whole thing sounded horrible – like a haunted fortress. Voldemort was insistent that Harry study the spell for warding off the Dementors, but the Patronus charm was tricky, and Harry struggled with turning his ‘happy thoughts’ into a Patronus. 

He also started to look up more information about Sirius Black and his father by extension. He was hesitant to ask anyone, but he forgot that the Dark Lord lived in his brain. In the first week of November, a school owl dropped off two books, the ‘Wizarding Families of England’ and the ‘Noble Twenty Eight Plus Five’. Slipped into the back of one of them, there was a hand-drawn family tree showing both the Potters and Blacks that left Harry feeling a little sick when he realised he was distantly related to Draco Malfoy.

He had a sneaking suspicion that the books had, in fact, come from the Malfoys though he lied to Hermione and Ron that he’d owl ordered them. Hermione had stuck up her nose at the books after her initial curiosity, on the grounds that the books weren’t comprehensive as they only talked of the purebloods. But for Harry, they provided him with anecdotes and stories to fill in the gaps regarding his extended family. Small bits of trivia like - how there were so many of them who had been excellent Potion Masters, and how he was a descendant of a wizard who was a literal character in some wizarding fairy tale. 

But Harry hit the real jackpot when he managed to sneak copies of the detention notes and records of the house-points awarded/lost in the 70s from Filch’s office. 

These were voluminous records – almost like an account book, but Harry found it endlessly fascinating to go through his parents’ school history. 

But the more he read and put things together… 

James Potter and Sirius Black had definitely been the best of friends. They were also clearly great friends with some boy called Remus Lupin and of course Peter Pettigrew. It was apparent in the way, they usually got into trouble together; usually for hexing or pranking their fellow classmates – mostly the Slytherins – more often than not- Severus Snape. Or ‘Snivelly’, as they liked to call him; his father had got a week’s worth of detention for somehow managing to hex Snape into calling himself ‘Snivelly’ for three days. Filch had recorded with almost perverse pleasure some of the insults that were traded between them. And Harry found the pit in his stomach expand as he read of James Potter’s many creative insults in making fun of Snape’s shabby clothes, unhappy family and ugly appearance. 

When it came to James Potter and his friends turning Snape upside down essentially pantsing him, Harry nearly tore the page out. He threw the file under his bed, and found himself running, running nonstop until he reached the Lake and couldn’t run anymore, trying to flee from the dark dread that now filled the pit of his stomach.

Harry wasn’t naïve. They were enough instances of Snape unleashing some clever jinx or hex at his father, and he clearly gave as good as he got. But there was cruelty and ridicule attached to James Potter’s pranks. He was worse than Dudley because Dudley was stupid. James Potter had been brilliant, arrogant and cruel in a way that even Malfoy couldn’t rival. 

For years, the Dursleys had told him his parents were just a bunch of drunks who had got themselves killed in a car crash. Once he was in the Wizarding World, everyone had fallen over themselves about how great his father had been. How much Harry looked like him. Hadn’t Dumbledore also told him how his father had saved Snape’s life. His father had been a hero! It had filled him with pride but now... 

His father had been a bully. 

Harry didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. It was outrageous, but he found himself thinking as to why exactly his mum had married his dad. He found himself obsessively going through the records searching in detail for every mention of his mum. It was clear from the records that Lily and Snape had been friends, at least till about the Fifth Year. They clearly had been partners in potions’ class earning point after point for turning in flawless potions and assignments. In fact, Lily Evans’ first detention had been for counter-hexing James Potter when he had gone after Snape in their first year. Then why had Lily stopped being friends with Snape? When did she decide she liked the arrogant twat that was James Potter better? 

Harry wished he had never gone looking for more information on his parents.

He was still so preoccupied with the information that for the first few times he didn’t even notice the rogue bludger as he ducked automatically in the Slytherin- Gryffindor Quidditch match. Only when he was trying to catch the snitch, avoid getting hit by the bludger, and trade insults with Malfoy simultaneously did the thoughts about his parents finally fade away. 

The relief was short-lived. Harry caught the snitch; his arm was broken, and then Lockhart did something funny to his arm. And who was the one, who scared Lockhart and the others away, and levitated him to the Infirmary, all the while grumbling accusations about Potters cheating in Quidditch? Severus Snape of course. Harry wanted to laugh.

“What are you laughing about?”

Harry blinked, coming back to himself. He had laughed! He reached out subconsciously towards where he knew in his brain, his connection with Voldemort existed and found it was still there if somewhat subdued. Whatever potion that Snape had tipped down his throat or more likely whatever stupid spell Lockhart had used has left him feeling a combination of sleepy and loopy.

“I think that’s just your usual state of mind, Potter.” 

Merlin, he hadn’t meant to say that out loud either. 

Harry just enjoyed essentially floating on air as he was levitated towards the Infirmary. They were still far away from the Infirmary, and Harry wondered if Snape was tempted to drop him.

“Makes sense if you do” Harry mused aloud. “My dad was a complete asshole to you. But you still saved my life, and I let Voldemort escape and even now…” He feels a thread of worry coming in from Voldemort’s end which makes him laugh again. The Dark Lord and his terrible Potions Master being worried about him. This was genuinely funny. 

“WHAT” 

“Snape is shouting at me again,” Harry said woefully, unmindful of Snape sputtering next to him. “I wish Snape didn’t hate me so much though. My mum was nice. Mad though to marry him.” Harry felt sudden grief well in him as the thought that he would never be able to ask his mum the question. He looked up at Snape who was towering over him, still asking him questions or shouting accusations. Harry couldn’t tell. He realised that he was now sitting on the infirmary bed. Madam Pomphrey had bustled in and out, then there was some potion that burnt his mouth and throat as it went down, and then there was only Snape.

“But I am not just Potter, you know. I am also mum,” Harry says. “And you liked her! No, he said you loved her!” Harry forgot what he wanted to say and the world tilted slightly. He would start floating again any second now except Snape was now shaking him by his shoulder.

Harry was so sleepy that the words went right through him. He wanted to lie down now, but Snape was insistent with his shaking.

“WHO TOLD YOU THIS, POTTER. TELL ME! WHO TOLD YOU!”

“you know who” Harry finally mumbled as he yawned for the nth time. 

The hands let go, and Harry found himself plopping blessedly on to a soft pillow. He was asleep before his next breath. 

* * *

Harry woke up to pain and in utter confusion as to how he had got to the Infirmary. He didn’t get much time to sort things out in his head, because that horrible creature Dobby was back, prancing about and punishing itself. It claimed responsibility for at least some of the things in Harry’s life that had sucked that year and told him about the other sucky stuff he already knew. The Chamber was open! Someone had died last time! Like he didn’t already know all this! It was a good thing for the elf, that his arm was still floppy, as Harry felt angry enough to wring its neck. 

When the creature disappeared suddenly with a ringing crack, Harry tried to go back to sleep. But the pain was all-consuming and was only growing. By and By, he realised that the pain was not just from his arm. He lifted a hand to his head and winced to find his scar throbbing. 

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and opened them to find Voldemort perched at the end of his bed. 

Harry wants to scream in frustration. 

_ Is this how Hogwarts protects its students?  _

But he knows the look on Voldemort’s face. He had the same look when he had come to visit Harry back in summer, had found him starving and had threatened to kill all the Dursleys if Harry did not recount every last excruciating detail of his ordeal.

By the time, Harry was done recounting the events from the rogue bludger to Lockhart messing up his arm and of course the damn house-elf Dobby, the pain had receded considerably even in his arm. 

_ It wasn’t my fault!  _ Harry hated that he felt the need to justify himself to Voldemort. 

Voldemort however, didn’t reply. He was still looking at Harry with those unnerving eyes, which flashed red from time to time. 

“ ** You will stop… ** ” and Voldemort seemed to rearrange his thoughts before continuing. “You will stop researching your parents. You will take those school records, and you will put them away, till such time as you grow out of your childish needs to have  ** perfect parents! ** ” Voldemort was hissing by the end. “People are not good or evil. They  _ just are.  _ And you are not your father nor your mother. Do you think they were shaped by hunger and cold and rage, as we were? No! If you must have an existential crisis, I suggest that you focus on the fact that I have shaped you more than they ever will!” 

Voldemort was up and ready to leave even as Harry sat quiet, defensive yet unsure how to respond to Voldemort’s rant.

“Also,” Voldemort added, his words careless but the way his thoughts tensed made Harry hyperaware. “In my haste to come to see you, I may not have taken all the precautions I should have.”

_ Voldemort had come to check on him. To make sure he was okay. _ The thought was so strange and alien that Harry crushed it immediately. 

“Did someone see you?” 

“Not me exactly.” 

Later that night when Dumbledore had levitated a petrified Finch-Fletchley into the Infirmary, Harry could only groan as loudly as he could in his head, as he pretended to be asleep. 

_So much for keeping his head down and hoping the Chamber business would die down!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter just tumbled out - slippery like an eel.
> 
> So much parental and snape related angst. Was that planned? _no!_
> 
> Harry spends quite a bit of time thinking of how is mum could bear to marry his dad. This is cannon. 
> 
> If Lockhart does a random spell and it has no impact on your head, is it even a Lockhart spell?
> 
> Am I forever in love with the trope of Harry suddenly deciding he wants to study and know more things than what the plot requires him to know. Yep, forever and for always. 
> 
> I know I am in the character bashing territory but I will try to do so gently.
> 
> I would love to hear your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy this indulgence.

The fact that Justin Finch Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick were found petrified in the fourth-floor corridor was a secret, and so, the whole School knew about it by the next day.

"Finch Fletchley had been telling anyone who'd listen that Harry must be the heir coz he saw him in that corridor that day. Malfoy must have gotten pissed off and gone after him."

"That makes no sense," Harry complained. He winced, looking up from his charms homework, to where Hermione and Ron were huddled together and having a rather loud 'private conversation'.

"Mate, who else could it be? Plus, he has been acting shifty! I told you, right? He was all jumpy when all he was doing was reading those senseless Lockhart books!" Hermione cut Ron off to argue that Lockhart wasn't senseless, but Harry's thoughts wandered away.

_No, for whatever reason Voldemort was lying low and Lucius Malfoy wouldn't be that dumb, right, to tell his loudmouth son?_ Then again there was that infernal house-elf trying to cause trouble.

Of course, nothing stirred the pot as much as the Chamber of Secrets. Even though Harry had been stuck in the Infirmary that night, there was a widespread rumour circulating that Harry was the Heir.

It was his fault, though. So maybe he deserved it.

Voldemort had been 'gracious' enough to charm his precious Basilisk's eyes with a thin layer to make her non-lethal. Harry didn't… couldn't hate the giant beast though. Sure, she was bit mad - Voldemort thought the extended centuries she had been put into dreamless sleep had contributed to it. And her enthusiasm for killing 'the heir's enemies' was alarming, but the Basilisk was just a snake – not a monster. Harry felt sorry for her, separated as she was from her own kind, forced into guarding the Castle against non-existent threats and being used as a power move by stupid Slytherin Heirs. She was dangerous nevertheless, and Harry was keen to get her out of the Castle somehow.

It all came crashing down, though, the very first meeting of the Duelling Club.

_WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ABOUT PARSELTONGUE? NOW EVERYONE WILL THINK, NO, THEY WILL BE CONVINCED I AM THE HIER!_

Malfoy's conjured snake had swerved in Hermione's direction, and Harry had by instinct told it to back off. He realised it was weird in hindsight, that he had just expected the snake to obey him, just like the Basilisk. He had been slightly awed when the giant snake had sidled away from Hermione and come obediently towards him.

Of course, Ernie Macmillan had to ruin it all with his dramatic finger-pointing and name-calling.

_I did tell you about parseltongue. Honestly, how else did you think you were communicating with the Basilisk?_

_A GIANT TALKING MAGICAL SNAKE IS NOT THAT HARD TO BELIEVE!_

_A giant talking magical snake? Don't be such a muggle, Harry._

"We don't have all day, Potter."

Harry looked up at Snape's sarcastic words. After the duelling incident, Snape had whisked Harry away to Dumbledore's office, but he hadn't expected to find Snape still waiting for him.

_He probably wants to give me detentions._ Harry thought glumly as he followed Snape. 

His interaction with Dumbledore had been both peculiar and frustrating. He was relieved that the Headmaster didn't think Harry was the Heir, but his offhand remarks on Dark Lords and Parseltongue seemed pointed and hinting at some sort of a sinister connection. Despite the upheaval, Harry couldn't help but be puzzled by that. For all the snakes he'd interacted with (and Harry felt quite dumb when he remembered his conversation with the boa constrictor in the muggle zoo) none of them seemed particularly evil. So why would talking to them be looked at with such suspicion in the wizarding world?

Snape led him to his office. The fire was roaring now, unlike at the start of the term and the room looked brighter for it. There were certain parts of the room, where the light didn't touch, and the shadows stretched weirdly, but Harry could appreciate now, that this was to better protect some of the finickier potion ingredients. A copy of the " _Most Potente Potions"_ was lying open on Snape's desk, and as he perched on the desk, Snape picked the book up, snapping it shut, looking down his pointy nose, at Harry, who stood fidgeting.

"Well, you know why you are here, Potter."

"I didn't realise it was something evil! I grew up with m…anyway, I wasn't telling it to attack or anything!" 

"I am sure you've managed to convince Dumbledore about that. What I want to know is how you have dared to steal Boomslang Skin and Bicorn Horn from my potion stores!"

Harry didn't even need to pretend ignorance. He didn't know what this was about.

"Bicorn Horn and Boomslang skin?" Harry stared at the book that Snape was holding, and it struck him "That's for…Polyjuice potion, right? I didn't-"

"Indeed," Snape said cutting in. "I would be tempted to give you points for your brilliant deduction of the potion in question if I didn't know that Granger checked this book out from the Restrictive Section just last month. The potion ingredients went missing just at the time, they would need to be added. Care to explain yourself?" Snape looked pleased with himself, but Harry's confusion must have shown on his face because Snape's smile thinned as he sniped.

"Well well well is the golden trio not a trio anymore?"

Harry glared at Snape who was smirking at him. 

_He hadn't known!_

He knew Ron and Hermione had been up to something, but he had thought it was just following Malfoy around. 

"It wasn't…us." Well, Harry wasn't lying really. Not fully. Snape continued to stare at him for long seconds in a manner that made Harry nervous. He had chalked it up to his paranoia, but he had felt that Snape was treating him differently the whole of last month. He was still taking points off him, and his snide remarks were cutting as always, but he'd catch Snape looking at him, an odd faraway look in his eyes from time to time.

_Maybe Snape thought he was the Heir?_ He'd send the thought down Voldemort's way but had only been met with stony silence. 

"You're dismissed."

Harry was surprised. He had been certain Snape wouldn't believe him this easily, and he was in for detention at the very least.

Harry mutely turned to leave but was brought up short when Snape said quietly behind him.

"Parseltongue isn't evil, Potter. Some would even consider it a gift. Of course, it is wholly lost on you except as a cheap stunt."

_Why because I am not an evil dark lord in the making._ Harry might have shot back before but now...Harry just left. 

* * *

Harry's confrontation with Hermione and Ron did not go well.

Not only were they brewing the Polyjuice potion with stolen ingredients to 'infiltrate' the Slytherin Common Room to ask Malfoy about the Heir; far worse, they were brewing in the second-floor girl's bathroom – the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

Harry would have found this extremely funny if he wasn't truly aware of how dangerous that crazy giant snake was.

"We were going to tell you," Hermione said primly. "Once the potion was ready."

"And it is or will be by next Tuesday! Who do you want to be Goyle or Crabbe? Hermione doesn't want to be one of those goons. She's decided on Millicent." Ron said excitedly.

They had wildly different reactions to Harry's ability. Hermione had wanted him to teach her. Ron, on the other hand, had found the whole thing disturbing and creepy. But they had both been annoyed on his behalf when the entire School seemed to have got on the 'Harry Potter is the Heir' train and were even more determined to clear things up.

Touched, Harry was almost willing to go along with their insane plan, even if he knew it was useless, except…

"I can't. Not next Tuesday,"

"Why not? You can't possibly be thinking of going back to the Dursleys."

Ron was flippant, which irked Harry. He minded far more than last year that his home life or lack thereof was an open secret.

"I have something to do." Harry hedged. Sure, he'd gone in, ready to pick a fight with his friends for not telling him about the Polyjuice Potion, but if they only knew of all that he was hiding.

"What? Can't it wait? We need to use the Potion the same day, as I am not sure how efficient it's going to be." Hermione, of course, caught him out immediately.

"I…party."

"WHAT?"

There was nothing he could do. He had to come clean.

"Annual Yule Ball. Fudge wants me to go. It's for some charity."

"Wait," Ron said slowly, "the Minister of Magic asked you to go to the Yule Ball?" He wasn't laughing anymore; the excitement about their next big adventure had vanished.

"What's that?" Hermione asked sharply, looking between Ron and Harry. 

This was a miserable turn of events. They were sat in the Common Room, with the fire in the grate blazing, but Harry could swear he felt the chill in the air.

"it's…" Harry wanted to explain. Trust, Ron to know the one thing he had been hoping he could be vague about.

"IT'S BEASTLY!" Ron's voice dropped as Hermione shushed him, but there was no lack of venom. "It's rich purebloods holding a fancy party to pat themselves on their back!"

"What? Why didn't you tell us, Harry?"

"Fudge just invited me! He said it would help me get to know the wizarding world better," There! He wasn't even lying. The letter had come just the day before though Harry had been expecting it for some time.

"Why you?" Hermione was still persistent.

"Possibly, the whole Boy Who Lived nonsense," Harry said weakly; he hoped that they would scoff at it, even joke but he'd forgotten how self-righteous Hermione could be.

"Well, that's wrong!" Hermione hissed, shrill enough that her voice carried. "How could you do that? How can you take advantage of something like that which got your parents killed!"

"Hermione!" Ron had the grace to look shocked.

Harry knew that the loud clamour of voices all around them had gone quiet, but all Harry could hear was loud ringing. He got up and left, pulling away from Hermione, almost viciously, when she put out a hand to stop him.

He walked away entirely lost to the world around him. It was the last couple of days before Christmas break, and most, if not all, of Hogwarts, seemed excited to be leaving. Going back to their homes and safety; away from the cold, draughty Castle with its Slytherin Monster.

" **Hello, ol' girl** ," He hissed, when he found himself down in the Chambers finally, with the Basilisk nudging him.

He could hear it now; now that he knew what he was supposed to be looking for. The words slipped out –sibilant noises, some of it so low and nuanced, almost just a tremble that he felt pass not through the air but his feet; he wasn't sure if his human ears were even supposed to hear that. 

_But magic made it so_.

Parseltongue came tumbling out of him, slippery like an eel, and he felt no pressure to order his thoughts to fit his tongue. Was this what a mother tongue was supposed to feel like?

_Mother_

The thought soured his mouth and stilled his tongue. What would his parents think of his ability? Of what he was doing now? Teaming up with their killer, hiding his crimes.

_The said crime_ was now nudging him rather insistently, if gently. He put his hand out to rub the scales. The Basilisk would shed her skin soon, and she was itchier than usual.

Harry's escort owl letter appeared next Tuesday, just a couple of minutes after Dumbledore had left the Great Hall, McGonagall in tow. 

* * *

He'd looked up the moment Professor Flitwick had finished reading the letter, glad to notice that Flitwick just smiled at him when he motioned Harry to follow him.

Harry left as casually as he could, avoiding Hermione's eyes that had been following him like a hawk all day.

She had apologised that day – clearly regretting the tone of her judgment if not the contents.

Harry had told her it was okay, but they both knew it wasn't – far from it. Partly it was because he was genuinely pissed with her but more so because this gave him the perfect excuse to avoid Hermione and Ron and any of their questions as it got closer to the Yule Ball. Most of Hogwarts was treating him like a pariah, anyway. Many were genuinely scared of him, skittering away from him, as he walked down the hallways, avoiding looking him in the eye, casting protective charms when they saw him. Others hissed around him, called him names, and tried to catch him with a hex or a jinx. He gave back as good as he got. But he hated all of them for labelling him evil just because of his gift. 

Ron and Hermione were planning to pull their dumb stunt that day, and he wished them luck. But he had more important things to do. 

Flitwick took him to his office, trudging up the seven floors, keeping up a lively conversation on the general counter spells and their limitations. Despite Flitwick's initial weirdness around Harry, he was one of the few professors who saw more of Lily in Harry – telling him in the second year, that his charms work increasingly reminded him of Lily. There was no real pity in his voice – just enthusiasm and Harry couldn't help but warm up to him.

"Well, Harry! This is a surprise! Do you want to go?" Flitwick asked. He was waving the invitation to the Yule Ball, stamped with the official Ministry of Magic stamp.

"Now I suppose, I should write to your guardians for their permission," Flitwick said, but hurriedly added, when he saw Harry's face fall, "but I think we can manage without it, can't we?"

Watching Harry vigorously nod his head, Flitwick laughed.

"Between you and me, your house head is likely to disallow it just on principle! She hates dancing!" He said, winking at Harry. "it's a good thing I am in charge today, eh?" Harry nodded again.

Dumbledore and McGonagall had both looked worried as they had left. Voldemort must have created a diversion – whatever it was. Harry tried not to think about it too much. 

"Well, I will allow it. It's a good experience and quite a bit of fun!" Flitwick smiled. He wrote back on the official letter using his fluffy ostrich feather quill – telling Fudge which of the Hogwarts fireplaces to floo to and heaped the fireplace up with more wood.

"You've been to the Yule Ball, before?" Harry asked politely as they waited. The way Ron had spoken, it had seemed that only the worst of the purebloods attended these things.

"Oh yes," Flitwick squeaked, his eyes narrowing in excitement. "for many years when I was younger! Especially when I was the Duelling Champion. What fun!" His cheeks turned red when he saw Harry's confused expression, and he added cheerfully, "All sorts of interesting witches and wizards show up!"

"Is it…is it only meant for purebloods?" Ron's words had rankled.

Flitwick turned, looking at him in surprise. He seemed intent on denying it immediately but paused reconsidering. "Indeed, the older wizarding families have traditionally thrown the Ball – it follows a cycle – and each family holds it in turn. Some of them are not as welcoming as others," Flitwick shrugged, and his eyes were a bit cloudy as if from memory. "But! The Yule Ball is not meant to be exclusionary! Some say the Yule Ball harks back to when Merlin and Morgana threw a grand celebration and invited all the wizarding folks even the Fey. All differences were put aside, and all things magic were celebrated."

"Now it's just mostly a good party!" he added.

The Flames turned green just then, and Fudge's face popped up. He looked preoccupied but brightened as he caught sight of Harry and Flitwick.

"Mr Potter! I am sorry for being late! Some last-minute issues to sort. Never a dull day when you are Minister of Magic. Ready to go? Professor Flitwick! Are you sure you will not come with us? You have a permanent invitation outstanding, don't you?" Fudge beamed.

"Ah, I am much too old, Minister!" Flitwick said, then added, smiling at Harry. "And I suspect Mr Potter is much too young! But I am sure you will take good care of him, won't you, Minister?"

Flitwick was still smiling, but there was a definite edge to his voice. The Ravenclaws were lucky to have this man fighting in their corner.

"Oh yes, of course," Fudge agreed much too quickly, but he nodded thoughtfully at Flitwick's words. His head popped away, as Flitwick handed the invitation over to Harry. Apart from the flowery gold inlaid invitation, the letter had a small symbol of three interlocking triangles.

"You need only press on the symbol, Harry. It will take you to where the Yule Ball is being held this year." Flitwick explained.

Harry nodded. He didn't have a good experience with the floo last time, and as he stepped into the fire, his fingers clutched the symbol hard.

When the world righted itself again, he found himself in an ornate sitting room, being greeted by a tall, beautiful woman.

"Welcome to Malfoy Manor, Harry. My name is Narcissa Malfoy. It's good to have you at this year's Yule Ball."

* * *

Harry only stumbled slightly as he stepped out of the monstrous marble fireplace – several feet taller than him and large enough to accommodate the entire Weasley family.

He hadn't known that the Yule Ball was being held at the Malfoy's.

_Trust Voldemort to make sure it was in a location that favoured him._

He just wished he could have shown up unnoticed and slipped away into the crowds. 

Instead, he was stuck fidgeting in front of Narcissa Black Malfoy.

"Perhaps, Mrs Malfoy will not mind getting you ready for the Yule Ball, Harry. I must hurry, I am afraid. I will need to leave early, and I must greet everyone in the meantime" Fudge said, a faraway look in his eyes. He didn't wait for Harry's response and just walked out in a hurry.

_So much for his word of taking care of him._

Narcissa Malfoy- _Draco's mother_ -only turned and left the room, motioning Harry to follow. He had meant to ask her about Voldemort, but the place he was seeing caught up with his brain, and he was left gawking.

Malfoy was a twat. A right twat. Stuffy and snobbish and obnoxious. But he hadn't been exaggerating when he had waxed annoyingly about his home. Hogwarts was an enormous castle, imposing yes, but built like a fortress. He loved the place, and it represented home for him, but it was cold with very few frills except for the Atmospheric charm in the Great Hall.

On the other hand, the Malfoy Manor was beautiful; the hallways large but warm, the walls gilt-edged and painted with pleasing colours, with any number of paintings and artefacts all arranged just so. The carpet that covered most of the stone floor was magnificent, and as Harry hurried after Narcissa Malfoy, he could hear sounds from what sounded like more than one fountain coming in from the diamond-paned windows.

Finally, after endless hallways, Narcissa Malfoy turned through an arch, where a double door opened into what appeared to be a guest room, done up in pastel blues and greens.

"Every year, we have a theme for the Yule Ball. This time it's the Fey." She said her voice clear and cool.

Narcissa Malfoy worked quickly. Harry had worn what he thought were his best robes, but Narcissa simply pushed a green robe toward him. It had so many silver fastenings that despite his initial protests that he could do it himself, he had to let her help, and she pined and tucked each of the fastenings away with deft wand work.

"The house-elves would usually help and save us both this awkwardness, but the Dark Lord has decreed that no house-elves be allowed near the Yule ball today," Narcissa said softly, as she bent down to fix the last of the fastenings. She had dropped the 'Dark Lord' into the conversation so casually that they may as well have been discussing the Chudley Cannons.

Harry didn't reply unsure of how much Voldemort had told the Malfoys about Dobby.

"Now for your hair," Narcissa said finally, her eyes inadvertently stilling on the scar before taking in the crow's nest on his head.

"Not much you can do," Harry said, forcing himself to relax. He wished he could trade places with Ron this very second. He should be turning himself into Crabbe and trying to infiltrate the Slytherin Common Room not being dressed by Malfoy's Mother!

This was surreal.

"Is that so?" And Narcissa's eyebrows arched, almost like it was a challenge. She waved her wand over his head, and Harry could feel a pleasant tingling all over his scalp, almost like someone was running a hand through his hair. 

She took his glasses away next, her face twisting into a grimace at the perfectly fine pair of glasses.

"you should learn an eyesight-correcting charm for now. You need only reapply it every month or so. You can correct your vision permanently with the correct potions once you grow up." She said offhand.

"I didn't know you could correct your vision permanently. My dad used spectacles." The words tumbled out before he could stop them.

Narcissa only murmured the charm, then had Harry test it out several times, until she was satisfied. He blinked, the world coming into better focus even more than with his glasses.

"Your father was so young when he died." She said, picking up their conversation from earlier, as she got up from the midnight blue chaise. "The potion is usually had once a wizard's eyes have stopped growing."

_Young._ James Potter had been young when he'd died. Barely an adult.

_He hadn't 'died'! he had been killed! By your dark lord!_ Harry wanted to shout.

But the words didn't come, and he let her fuss over him some more.

The Yule Ball was being held in the Malfoy Conservatory, a lavish many roomed affair, with arched windows and its own lily pond, adjoining the Manor – bedecked with evergreens, silver, and gold lights for the occasion. The party was in full swing, by the time Harry entered.

The magnificence was one thing – but what took his breath away – was the palpable presence of magic in every inch of the place. The many serving plates floated into your view when you were looking for them. More than once, Harry saw guests just abandon their drinks mid-air, as they reached out excitedly to grasp the hands of another, only for the glass to hover and twirl mid-air, till the guests remembered them. There were live performances in the Conservatory's nooks and corners – from a witch making dazzling moving smoke animals for the younger children to an acrobatic troupe performing feats suspended mid-air. It was overwhelming. 

Harry tried hard not to twitch his transfigured fawn-like ears as he thought of the baby antlers that adorned the top of his head. Harry had been horrified when he realised what Narcissa had done, but she had been adamant.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" Harry's voice dropped immediately when she gave him a look, "Why would you make me look like a fawn!" Harry had given up on trying to pull them off – they felt like extensions of his own skull – which on second thought – they probably were.

"It's the only appropriate costume for a child," she'd said serenely even as she steered him towards the Conservatory.

Harry had sputtered in rage, but there wasn't much he could do. 

He'd thought this was some petty pureblood prank to make him look like a joke, but as he took in the sights and sounds of the Yule Ball, he found himself relieved to realise he was not even on the spectrum of the weirdly dressed at the party for that evening. 

More often than not, the wizards weren't wearing masks. Instead, many seemed to have transfigured themselves partially if not altogether to give themselves elven features made of feathers, scales, or metal. 

Harry could see why McGonagall would hate this place, and it wasn't just the dancing. There wasn't anything useful about these transfigurations; it was not the efficient use of magic that McGonagall had drilled into his head. Here it was heaped almost carelessly into frivolous details – from the delicate yet sinewy butterfly wings that gave off an iridescent shimmer against the candlelight, to the antlers that grew in twisting almost runic patters off people's heads.

Flitwick was right. It was an experience. Harry was almost content, just to stand in a corner and gawk at the magic of it all. But he felt the brush of thoughts against his own, and he only had to squeeze into the middle of it all to find Voldemort. He was standing, near the pond, where the lilies were aglow with a swarm of pixies. He was dressed in a black coat with silver buttons running down both sides – strict almost regimentally formal – except for the coat's insides, which were a blood red. The eye-catching accessory was the large angular skull of a horned ram that sat perched on Voldemort's head - a mask that had been pulled up.

Voldemort was making no attempts to hide his face as he spoke enthusiastically – to the tall wizard in front of him. The man was older – his face lined heavily. He was dressed in black having done the bare minimum to keep to the Ball's theme, with the fey ears and the long silvery hair – though the later – Harry realised after seeing the Malfoys was common enough among the Wizards.

**"Your ideas are as thrilling as they are unachievable."** Harry heard the wizard say as he got closer to them.

Harry stopped short. _The man had spoken parseltongue; the man had used parseltongue to insult Voldemort_!

Harry looked around wildly to see if any of the other wizards had noticed, but they seemed completely unaware of the two standing in the midst of them.

Harry wasn't surprised when he felt the quick stab of pain from Voldemort's sudden anger course through his veins at the man's words. But nothing showed on Voldemort's face. He only shrugged as if he had lost a minor debate, then smiled with what looked like genuine glee as he caught sight of Harry.

"Harry!" he said, hailing him like he was his close friend, **"Come say hello!"**

Harry wanted to do no such thing. Here, he was trying to take all the care in the world to keep their terrible connection hidden while Voldemort went around introducing him to his followers! But Harry trudged forward as he felt the inevitable pull and murmured his introductions at the man who was looking at him in undisguised surprise.

" **What name should we tell him of yours, my Lord,"** Voldemort asked. " **The child is young, but he is likely to meet you only this once. Or should we wait to introduce him to your successor? I have hopes that he will be more amenable to my' thrilling ideas'."**

The man's lips thinned, and he gave Voldemort a look that made the world around them go cold and dreary. Harry knew the other guests could feel it too! They gasped in surprise, many pulling out their wands looking around for the threat, but they couldn't seem to detect it even as the magic leached out of them and coalesced into dark wisps that surrounded the man.

" **I would be careful, Riddle. Names have power as you very well know,** " He said his voice cut like glass. " **I do hope that you have not regressed mentally to match this...youthful body.** " and the man smiled with too jagged teeth at Voldemort in a way that made Harry's skin crawl.

"Harry Potter, I believe this will complete your 'costume'" The man said, in English now, turning suddenly to smile at Harry with nice even teeth. He held an evergreen wreath in his hands that would fit Harry's head.

Colour, light, and magic returned to their immediate surroundings, and the guests went back to their conversations – slightly dazed but completely forgetting the bizarre incident.

Harry accepted it almost automatically and started as the man suddenly disappeared.

"Oak and acorn, not subtle, is he?" Voldemort said, as he picked the wreath out of Harry's hands and deposited it on his head.

Harry noticed that Voldemort was holding a similar wreath though this one was made of holly and ivy.

"Who was that Wizard? He must be related to you or Slytherin, right?" Harry didn't care about the wreaths, but he was itching to know who the wizard was.

_He seemed powerful; someone Voldemort couldn't mess with. He could even be related to me._ Harry didn't buy Dumbledore's explanation that parseltongue may have passed on to him from Voldemort.

" **You are the only other parseltongue, I know, my young fawn** ," Voldemort said looking away from the wreath that he was holding in his hands and grinning as Harry flushed, touching his ears self-consciously. 

Voldemort dangled his wreath playfully on the horned ram skull that he now pulled down to cover his face.

" **But he was speaking** -"

**"The Fey speak all animal tongues,** " Voldemort said shrugging, his voice sonorous as it came through the ram head. He held up his hand, stopping the onslaught of Harry's questions, "Forget it. Let's go find Fudge and do what we came here for."

* * *

Finding Fudge wasn't difficult at all. He'd changed into a large puffy silver robe with curving goat horns growing out of the side of his head. He was holding court just outside the Conservatory pulling in anyone new he spotted and regaling them with his tales. It became worse once he spotted Harry.

In a short time, Harry felt he had shaken everyone's hand at the party. Many of them were so warm and teary-eyed that it made Harry uncomfortable at the adulation; others were openly curious prodding him insistently to tell them in detail as to 'how exactly had he defeated the Dark Lord'. There were also some, who were standoffish, clearly uncomfortable to be seen with the 'Boy Who Lived'.

The only hiccup was when Augusta Longbottom, a formidable-looking older woman, wearing an almost lifelike phoenix bird on her hat and a red handbag cornered him.

"I did not expect Harry Potter in a place like this!" she sniffed, looking darkly towards where Narcissa and Lucius were standing. 

But she wasn't really looking for an answer from him. She told him to be careful of the people he was associating with, louder than required and asked about Neville (and Harry thanked his stars that Neville did not seem to have told her of the petrification incident last year). 

Voldemort had been insistent that he know enough about the people he was likely to meet at the Ball, which saved him from some awkwardness. And they in turn after their initial curiousness went back to their own talks of wizarding issues. From how the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau was worried about the dwindling population of welsh greens, to the increasing congestion in Diagon Alley due to a nearby muggle construction and the Ministry's newest set of taxes on import of magical equipment. Harry had thought he'd hate the whole thing, but it was a whole new world for him. He spent the year at Hogwarts and the holidays at the Dursleys, and he had very little knowledge of the larger wizarding world. 

His mind though kept wandering back to the Fey that Voldemort had been speaking to. He had read up a bit about them when he was looking up the Founder legends, and the general consensus seemed to be that the Great Fey were the stuff of myth and legend, lost in time; to think they were still around! Were there more of them at this Ball?! Is that why the theme for the Ball had been 'Fey'.

"So, Mr Potter, what was your entreaty?" a frizzy-haired witch spoke breaking Harry's thoughts.

Harry was lost. He's stopped paying attention a while ago when Griselda Marchbanks had started monologuing for the need for further regulations of the Forest of Dean.

"I-"He looked around desperately. Narcissa caught his eye, then glanced away towards the suggestion box hovering mid-air near the Conservatory entrance.

_Oh, that._

A large part of the money collected from the Yule Ball was contributed to the St. Mungo's Magical Maladies Fund. Additionally, there was an 'entreaty box' where everyone could write down one pet project close to their heart. One of the suggestions would be chosen, and the Ministry would match donations left over from the Yule Ball to make it come true.

"A scholarship or a fund for wizarding children to attend Hogwarts," Harry said. He'd scribbled it down on a whim not expecting anyone to bring it up.

"Hmmph – that already exists," Augusta Longbottom said dismissively. "All the muggle-borns get a stipend. My suggestion is-"

But Harry cut in annoyed at her dismissive tone. He felt sorry for Neville who needed to deal with this woman on a lifelong basis!

"Not the muggleborns," Harry said, then added hurriedly. "I didn't know there was a stipend for them – that's good. Just something similar for kids from wizarding families that are not so well off." He warmed to the subject as he remembered Greta's fake airy airs when she'd spoken of not attending that 'fancy school'. "Everyone should have a chance to attend Hogwarts," He said, then felt awkward as the older crowd continued to stare at him in surprise. Clearly this was a stupid suggestion. "some sort of scholarship probably already exists right?"

"It doesn't," Lucius said, breaking the silence. "I wonder why." He looked at Griselda Marchbanks who glared back at him and then at Fudge, who smiled awkwardly.

The group were trading looks – many an unsaid conversation; Harry had a bad feeling he'd opened the pandora's box with this one.

A letter whizzed over to Fudge on a platter thankfully breaking up the conversation.

"Oh dear, I must be off," Fudge said, stuffing the letter away in his robe. "Come, Harry, I should return you to Hogwarts as well."

Harry ducked away, saying quick goodbyes. Augusta Longbottom was still giving him a disapproving look, but the fizzy haired woman Matilda Rowle seemed to have warmed up to him considerably.

They slowly made their way back to the Manor, Fudge, stopping every few steps to greet someone or the other, but they finally made it back to the ornate sitting room on the first floor.

"Thank you, Minister Fudge, this has been a fantastic opportunity for me, "Harry said cringing only the slightest bit as the words left his mouth. He threw in the floo powder and stepped into the green flames, tensing slightly as he heard Voldemort's voice behind him.

" _Imperio"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was done early enough but I had to, just had to, wait and write ahead for *Plot!* before I posted it. This one is more of a scene setter if you will. 
> 
> I bet Narcissa dressed Harry up, to look like the cute magicked child that he was, for the Yule Ball. I am sad that I can't write up the description but Harry, mortified, would have avoided all mirrors. 
> 
> Harry may not care for wreaths but the mysterious Fey seems to be pointing towards the battle between the Holly and Oak King. On that note, I love myths and magical world building - but I claim no expert knowledge. So bastardised tales will abound.
> 
>   
> I've enjoyed seeing people be interested in the tale. So I hope you'll stick around!


	4. Chapter 4

Harry stepped back, not having given the floo a destination.

Fudge did not look any different. He was still tapping his feet, in a hurry to be off for whatever important errand he had to run. He had his eyes closed, though; Voldemort must have ordered him to do so under the Imperio. 

“ _Muffliato_ ” Voldemort came over and tapped Fudge from behind.

“He won’t be able to hear us now.”

“I thought you were going to use a memory charm on him anyway once all this is over,” Harry asked. 

"Such lack of concern for the Minister of Magic. Whatever would Dumbledore say?"

Harry turned away, annoyed. He had read about _Imperio_ , enough to know that it was an unforgivable curse - something that he would have vehemently opposed in normal circumstances. But they needed Fudge’s cooperation for their plan, and Harry would worry about the consequences later. 

He pulled out the pocket-sized invisibility cloak and spelt it back to its original size.

“Torture,” Voldemort said as he ran a hand over the invisibility cloak appreciatively. 

_ This is a beautiful heirloom, Harry _ . 

__

_ Stop touching my father’s cloak! _

Voldemort let go almost immediately, lifting his hands in mock surrender, smiling at Harry’s mutinous expression.

“Torture?” Harry asked. 

“hmmm, yes, torture, applied just right - it can break through memory charms. Best to keep Fudge’s memories as vague as possible. It is a pity that I can’t just keep him under an _Imperio_ permanently, but Dumbledore’s lot are a paranoid bunch.”

_ Not everyone is like you or your Death eaters! Dumbledore would never torture anyone! _

Voldemort only laughed. 

* * *

Eddie Bones was on the night shift again. 

He was barely a year in the field and putting an Auror that junior on the Azkaban night shift was unheard of. He was being bullied by the other human guards!

He had tried to make a case of this before Aunt Amelia, but she had icily told him that he should be grateful he was outside and not serving time inside the prison cell.

_ How was he to know that the boy was a squib, not a muggle? He had only been trying to uphold the Statute of Secrecy when he had obliviated him! _

Eddie sighed. He toyed with the idea of fire-calling Valerie but gave up morosely as he remembered that it was the night of the Yule Ball. 

There was only one prisoner who'd been brought in today, and while Watson had told him to draw up the paperwork, he’d put it off. Everyone would be off enjoying Yule while he was in for a long boring night. 

The paperwork could bloody well wait!

So, when the floo request came in – Eddie was utterly unprepared – especially when he saw Fudge himself had come. 

Fudge waved away his greeting, clearly irritated at being there. Eddie couldn’t blame him. No one wanted to be in Azkaban if they could help it. 

Unfortunately for Eddie, Fudge was here for the paperwork, which set him scrambling. It took him a whole minute to realise that the Minister was not alone. 

Standing in shadow, next to Fudge, utterly quiet, was an Unspeakable. Eddie couldn't see his face because the cowl of the typical Unspeakable cloak was pulled up. But he still felt a fissure of fear – he chalked it down to him being in such close contact with the Unspeakable for the first time. They were a weird bunch. 

“This is going to take me some time,” Fudge tutted at the paperwork making Eddie swallow nervously. 

“You had better go ahead,” Fudge said, looking at the Unspeakable. 

Then turning to Eddie, he continued, “Mr Bones, The Unspeakable is here on official business. He needs access to the prisoners in the third dungeon. Please do the needful to remove the Dementors from the vicinity.”

Eddie swallowed. Watson's words were ringing in his ears. 

_ "No one is allowed in, not even Merlin himself, without proper paperwork." _

“I – of course. If you could Mr…Unspeakable, sir, give me some information regarding yourself and p..purpose of visit.”

“THIS PAPERWORK IS HORRENDOUS!” Fudge shouted, slamming the papers down on the table, making Eddie jump. 

He rounded on Eddie. “Tell me, Mr Bones, when you obliviated Mr Goldstein, did you do such a shoddy job because that was all you were capable of? Or was it to hide the fact that you did it on purpose?"

“On purpose?“ Eddie sucked in a breath. It was a secret! Not even Aunt Amelia, despite her prodding, had been able to figure anything out. 

“Her name is Valerie, yes? The Selwyn girl. I believe the marriage is to go ahead despite Mr Goldstein’s condition. Ms Selwyn doesn’t mind at all! After all, the boy has forgotten all his earlier reservations of burdening her. She seemed keen, though, to reopen the investigations on your part in the matter.”

What? Valerie hadn’t said anything to him! She had been sweet and understanding and had let him cry into her arms! 

All of Eddie’s young love came crashing down. He had put his entire career at risk in trying to win over his childhood crush! And Valerie had fallen in love with a squib! Nothing better than a muggle!

“Minister, you must not believe her! I was only nice to her because I felt sorry for her! Aunt Amelia was right! You can't trust a family like the Selwyn's – all of them are dark arts practitioners and dark lord supporters. I can swear it was all her idea and – “

Fudge held up a hand to silence him. “We don’t have time, Mr Bones. Will you fix this.” 

He looked meaningfully to where the Unspeakable was standing. He hadn’t said a word during the entire exchange.

Eddie swallowed, looking between the Unspeakable and Fudge, then agreed quickly, “Please allow me to fix this paperwork, while Mr. – Unspeakable can get on with his work.”

When Eddie saw Fudge nod graciously, he heaved a sigh of relief.

He could get through this! He didn’t need to report this visit to Watson at all.

* * *

“How could he just put everything on her! I can’t believe he is an Auror!” Harry said once they were in the lift, far away from the horrible Bones fellow and Fudge. The old-fashioned contraption was grimy and poorly lit, the lights flickering as it dropped down inch by inch, painfully slow, its cranky mechanism jangling every step of the way. Harry braced himself against the wall, even though he winced as he felt the dirt under his hand. It felt like the lift could plunge them to their death any second.

“The Selwyn’s are known Dark Lord sympathisers. On the other hand, Eddie Bones is related to Amelia Bones and the Bones Family – who are staunch light supporters. In a world as it is now, whose word do you think would carry weight?” Voldemort asked. 

He’d changed into the Unspeakable cloak at the Manor, even as Harry had wrapped himself up in his invisibility cloak. Usually, even the Aurors and prisoners had a long journey to get into Azkaban – jumping through hoops at the Ministry, apparating across several locations and finally taking the long cold boat ride to where Azkaban was located. As the Minister of Magic, Fudge had a special pass, and they had only needed to side apparate with him. 

Harry scowled. As the lift descended ever so slowly, he couldn’t help saying, “How can someone from your precious supporters marry a muggle? 

“A squib is not a muggle,” Voldemort said sharply, and Harry knew instinctively, this was a touchy topic. “How do you think muggleborns exist, Harry? They have a wizard or a squib somewhere in their ancestry.”

“That’s not true!” Harry said automatically. But he didn’t actually know. It set his mind thinking. Did this mean his mother might have had a squib ancestry? Wait, did this mean Dudley could have been a Wizard? Harry felt a little sick at the thought.

Voldemort readjusted the cowl as the lift finally came to a shuddering halt.

“Let’s go. And please keep yourself well hidden. It would not do well to have the prisoners rave about seeing boy wonder here!”

The Guards' room had been dismal, the lift had been grimy, but the Azkaban dungeons were horrifying. Huge and cavernous as they were, the walls closed in, dark and forbidding. The oil lamps hung in irregular intervals – and barely gave out any light. Both the walls and the floor were wet and slimy, and Harry clutched the cloak around him, desperate to not let its ends touch the ground. Awful smells crept up on them unawares, almost gagging Harry. Worse was the horrible silence that filled the place; once in a while, he would hear a whimper, but it would get cut off almost like it had been eaten alive by the silence. 

It was awful. 

He’d thought the prisoners would stare and shout – but these poor men and women sat, as far back as possible in their tiny dirty cells, huddled into themselves.

Harry wanted to steele himself – this was where the worst of the worst were kept. Someone like Sirius Black who’d betrayed his parents. They wholly deserved it! But it was hard not to be affected by the sheer despair that was palpable in Azkaban. 

They went through twisting passages, always lower, meeting none of the Dementors, thankfully. Eddie Bones had assured them that the Dementors had been ordered to stay away, but Harry had read much about the Dementors and Azkaban that school year, and he knew more than one guard had fallen victim to some rogue Dementor. 

They came finally to a massive iron door that covered the entire dungeon from the roof to the floor. It was shaped irregularly to match the dungeon interiors, and a set of interlocking locks, shaped like a rune, adorned its face. Voldemort inserted the various keys in the right locks in the proper sequence and simultaneously opened the lot with his wand. The door opened slowly – inch by inch - the bottom scrapping against the floor – jarring and loud. 

Harry could see in the dim light as the door opened that the third dungeon was a large curving passageway with cells arranged in a semicircle. 

They walked forward but stilled when they heard a woman scream over the sound of the door. 

“IS THAT YOU BONES! HAVE YOU COME TO WET YOUR PANTS AGAIN???” the voice filled the cavernous interiors, turned madder by the echo.

Harry felt Voldemort’s thoughts lurch. He knew this woman.

“Oh, do be quiet, Bella.” 

A low resigned voice – Harry didn’t think he would have heard it if it wasn’t for the echo in the dungeons. 

The woman was still screaming and cackling in the background. Harry ignored her as he skirted past her to the last cell to the right of the passageway. The voice had come from there – the cell that Eddie Bones had assured held Sirius Black. He gripped his wand tight as he tried to peer inside, but the darkness was all-consuming. 

The women’s voice was cut off as Voldemort cast some sort of a privacy spell around them. Harry couldn’t hear anything except the hammering of his own heart. 

_ Give me your cloak. You can go closer to the bars. He can’t hurt you. _

_ I AM NOT SCARED! _

He let go of his death grip on the invisibility cloak as Voldemort pulled it off him, and Harry stepped forward towards the cell, closer to the twisting magicked bars. He cast a Lumos spell. It was weak, but Harry could see at the farthest end of the cell – the shadow of a man sitting propped up against the wall, one leg stretched out and the other bent under it. 

“If you’ve come to bluster again, Eddie, I suggest you do it for Bella. She enjoys the show much more than I do.”

Sirius Black’s voice was low and gravelly. He didn’t look at Harry at all, just continued to stare off into the distance.

“I am not Eddie.” 

At his words, the man slowly looked at Harry and held his gaze for long moments, almost like he didn’t see him. He then scrambled, darting forward on all fours to the bars so quickly that Harry stepped back on instinct. 

He was close enough to the man to see him clearly now. Long filthy matted hair framed a sunken, pale face. He would have looked like a corpse if it wasn’t for his dark eyes. 

Gone was the handsome, arrogant boy of whom Harry had obsessively collected pictures. 

“Oh, James!” Sirius said, drinking up Harry's face, seemingly desperate. 

Harry forgot to breathe. He just stood there staring back as the man clutched the bars with his dirty hands with its broken nails, his mouth slack and his eyes almost feverish as they raked over him. 

“I am…I am not James.” Harry hated that his voice was soft. 

“I know,” Sirius said matter of fact, blinking slowly, “you’re dead. But you’re a good dream. The best I’ve had in…forever.” He threw his head up as he laughed, then seemed to startle at the sound and looked wildly back at Harry, relaxing somewhat when Harry didn’t disappear immediately.

“James, the 'dream you' is so young! A knobbly 10-year-old! The antlers are a nice touch, though, Prongs!” He beamed, his skin stretching, taut against his skull and the yellow teeth making his smile look sinister. 

Harry’s hand flew up to the transfigured antlers and ears that still adorned his head. Voldemort had refused to turn them back, much to his chagrin. 

He didn’t know what to say to this man. He had thought of the conversation he would have with Sirius Black, the backstabber, for the umpteenth time, but he wasn’t prepared for this hollowed-out shell of a man who looked at him with such affection that it made Harry’s heart ache. 

“Merlin, we don’t have all day, Harry!” Voldemort’s voice behind him made Harry start. Harry had forgotten he was there. 

“ _Praecis coniunctis,_ ” Voldemort murmured. There was no visible change except some of the feverish intensity seemed to lesson from Black’s face. 

“Black, I will give you one opportunity to use your own head. This is not James Potter.” He said, pointing at Harry. “This is his son, Harry Potter. Harry wants answers and then maybe revenge. I am not sure what that revenge entails as the strongest spell this 12-year-old knows is a jelly jinx curse.” 

Harry bristled but kept quiet. Sirius Black was hanging on to Voldemort's every word. He turned to look at Harry again, but this time his eyes were clearer – lingering on the scar. 

“You’re Harry.” He said, finally taking in a strangled breath. The affection in his eyes didn’t dim; only the sorrow seemed to increase. 

“I…maybe this is still a dream. An Unspeakable and Harry.” 

He rubbed his forehead with his trembling hand and then said resolutely, “I understand if you want revenge. It was all my fault.” 

Harry knew Voldemort could step in and rip this man’s mind apart for all the answers he wanted, but he found that he didn’t want that to happen. Something about the state the man was in, how he looked at Harry, and how he spoke of his father made Harry unsure; it made Harry's heart sink.

What if...

He stepped forward and grasped Black’s hands through the bars before Voldemort could pull him away. 

Sirius Black startled and looked at Harry in wide-eyed surprise.

“Tell me,” Harry said, feeling the jutting bones in Black’s wrists under his fingers. “how it was your fault.” 

The story came in fits and bursts. It was a tragic story – unhappy enough that Sirius reckoned that the Dementors had not been able to take it away from him. He was innocent of betraying his friend, James, the one he’d loved even more than his own brother, but Sirius was guilty, of that he was sure. Guilty of talking James and Lily into choosing Peter, _that rat_ , to be the secret keeper. Guilty of not even considering that Peter could betray them; Guilty that he had been arrogant enough not to doublecheck, that even when he had – he had been too late. He had failed to protect James, Lily and Harry. He had even failed to kill Peter Pettigrew. 

He was guilty in all the ways that mattered. 

Sirius had stopped talking. Harry stared at the wretched man through the bars, his mind in turmoil. 

Voldemort moved forward, pulling Harry back. “Turn yourself into your animagus form,” Voldemort ordered. 

Sirius looked at Voldemort - in his Unspeakable guise, then at Harry, who nodded. 

Instead of the man, there was a scrawny black dog in his place in a blink of an eye. 

“Change back,” Voldemort said, his voice curt. 

The dog shuddered and turned back into Sirius Black, still crouched on the floor. 

“Black, eyes on me if you please.” Voldemort continued, swiftly raising his wand to Sirius’ forehead.

_ DON’T HURT HIM!  _ The thought was out even though the words were stuck in Harry's throat. He gripped Voldemort’s robe, halting him. 

Harry knew it was pointless to demand that Voldemort do anything he wanted. Still, he couldn't help but hiss, " **Be gentle, please!"**

Voldemort only looked pointedly at Harry's grip on his robe until Harry let go. 

“ _Legilimens!_ ” 

Harry couldn't tell if Voldemort was any gentler. It was the first time Harry saw the effects of the spell on another wizard. Sirius' face twisted, and he seemed to sway from the force of it. By the time Voldemort released him, he was shuddering and clutching his head in pain. 

Harry didn’t have to ask. He knew because Voldemort knew that Sirius Black was innocent. 

_ None of it was a lie! _

Harry felt lost. He had collected every scrap of information he could find on Sirius Black. But no one had expressed even a shred of doubt that Sirius Black was not guilty. Why had no one stepped up? No one, not one of his school friends, especially that werewolf Remus Lupin? When Peter’s body wasn’t found. Why hadn’t questions been raised? What of Dumbledore? The all-knowing, wise old man who instinctively seemed to be able to judge a person’s character. He'd figured out Voldemort was evil when he was barely 11! Why hadn't he noticed that Sirius was innocent! Why hadn’t he wondered? 

_ He comes from a Dark family. That is a good enough reason for most to believe the worst.  _

Harry felt the thought swirl into his head, but he ignored it as he knelt down, grasping Sirius’ trembling hands in his own. “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING? ALL THIS TIME!” Harry felt a pang as he saw the way the man flinched from his touch, then trustingly relaxed, smiling at him. 

“There was no trial,” Sirius said, shrugging, “and I was already in Azkaban. Everything happened so suddenly, and then - I was just trying to survive being down here. Besides, I was guilty, Harry, like I told you.” He insisted with a sigh. “In the ways that mattered, and I didn’t care -”

“Didn’t care that Peter Pettigrew had escaped and could potentially kill others? Didn’t care about how your godson was going to survive the death of his parents?” Voldemort cut in, his voice calm and matter of fact.

“BUT I KNEW HARRY WOULD BE SAFE!” Sirius shouted, his voice almost a shriek, as he looked up at Voldemort wildly and then at Harry. “Dumbledore had Hagrid come and take Harry away that day. Once I realised James and Lily were - they were gone - I’d picked you up in my arms!” Sirius said, digging his hands into Harry’s, his eyes wide with memory. “At Godric’s. But Hagrid said Dumbledore had asked you to be taken to him. I knew he would take care of you! Only then-“Sirius snarled. “only then did I go after that rat!” 

_ His belief in the old coot is remarkable for someone in his position. _

Harry ignored Voldemort’s jibe.

The fury and resentment that had been brewing in Harry thickened and coalesced. 

_ ‘Do you think they were shaped by hunger and cold and rage, as we were?’ Voldemort had asked earlier when he had been talking of how he…they were different.  _

Harry curled his fists and turned to Voldemort. 

“We need to get him out. We need to get him out now!”

“Don’t be naive, Harry.”

“I AM NOT LEAVING HIM IN THIS HELLHOLE TO ROT! HE CAN FOLLOW US OUT IN HIS ANIMAGUS FORM. HE IS SO THIN HE CAN PROBABLY SQUEEZE THROUGH THE BARS!”

“Harry, it doesn’t ma-“ Sirius tried to speak up. 

“THEY ALL ABANDONED YOU! WHY ARENT YOU ANGRIER?” Harry turned towards his godfather. Sirius looked dazed at Harry’s outburst. 

“Not all of them,” Voldemort said; He was holding up the prison registry book – which he’d grabbed as they’d left the Guard’s room. 

Harry looked at Sirius, but he just looked confused. Voldemort flicked the book upright to show them the entries.

“Your cousin Narcissa Malfoy has tried to meet you several times since your incarceration. You refused – every single time.” 

“Cissa?” Sirius said dismissively, “Please, she probably wanted to know where her precious Dark Lord was!” Sirius laughed – the sound unpleasant, scraping at his throat.

Voldemort snapped the book shut. 

“Say your goodbyes, Harry. We should leave soon. We can strategize how to get him out. **But it’s not going to be now.** ”

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Voldemort's thoughts tumbled through. 

_ Do not fight me on this. We cannot get Black out without a plan. Look at him! _

“This is a definite dream,” Sirius murmured as he rocked forward and backwards, gripping the bars. He hit his head against the bar as he repeated. “This is a definite dream!”

Harry’s shoulder slumped. The clarity spell – whatever Voldemort had cast was starting to wear out.

__ Point made Voldemort strode away in the direction of the other cells. 

_ Excuse me while I go meet some of my actual supporters.  _

Harry crouched down, pulling Sirius hands away from the bars, forcing him to look at him.

“Sirius, please, you have to remember me and stay strong. Please!” he said desperately. 

“Here, keep this,” he pulled out the chocolate frog he had squashed inside his robe earlier in the day. It had felt silly to carry chocolate though many an expert source had emphasised it helped with the Dementors. 

“Remember I was real; remember I need you! I need you outside!”

He emphasised each word and spoke as if he was talking to a child.

_ But it felt hopeless.  _

Sirius continued to mutter. “Harry and an Unspeakable! I thought I’d escaped the Black Family curse! But I must finally be going Mad! Mad as Bella!”

Harry looked back to see if Voldemort was near then hissed urgently to Sirius. “I need you to remember this, Sirius. YOU LEFT ME!” Sirius looked horrified, but Harry continued, “because you didn’t care, Dumbledore left me with muggles – my mother’s relatives.”

Sirius’ face twisted in almost comical horror. “What! NO! they were horrible!”

“Yes! Remember that I had a horrible childhood because you were reckless. I suffered because I was left with them! Because you didn’t care!” The words tumbled out, true, yes, but twisted, ugly and vile. 

Harry ignored the way Sirius's eyes teared up. 

“Remember I was real! Remember what I told you. Promise you will keep yourself sane; promise, if someone asks you - you will tell them the truth!” 

He repeated it over and over again, hating himself. The Dementors couldn’t take an unhappy memory away. Harry would trade on that to keep Sirius sane and motivated to get out when help arrived. He told Sirius stories from his childhood - about being told his parents were drunks, who'd died in a car crash, being treated like a freak, of being unloved and unwanted. He did not even need to exaggerate how horrible it had been.

At some point, he gave in to the insistent tugging on his thoughts. He tore himself away from Sirius, who had crept back to the end of his cell. 

Harry rubbed vigorously at his eyes, trying to get rid of the tears. He knew he didn't have to bother, that Voldemort was all too aware in any case. But he didn't want to give Voldemort the satisfaction of seeing him like this. 

Harry set his face in a scowl.

Voldemort was waiting for him outside the cell of the woman who had been screaming earlier.

She was crying quietly now, clutching Voldemort’s hands through the bars, words bubbling out of her.

_ “ _ I knew you would come, my Lord. I knew it! I never doubted. Never ever, even when they all told me, I was mad! Nasty spells, they cast and told me to beg, say you’re sorry Bella," she said in a sing-song voice. "say that the Dark Lord was wrong! Say that you renounce him! Never ever ever!” She recited. 

She was in a similar state as Sirius, physically, at lease. But a mad white glimmer of magic streaked across her eyes from time to time. 

It disturbed Harry. How much like Sirius, she looked. 

_ Bella…Bellatrix Black! She was Sirius’ cousin and Narcissa’s sister! _

Harry was pretty sure Voldemort didn’t really need a Legilimens spell to tell that Bellatrix's almost devotional mutterings were the truth. She looked up at Voldemort with a level of crazed love that made Harry feel uncomfortable being there.

Harry couldn’t see his face under the Unspeakable cowl, but Voldemort was quiet. Too quiet in his thoughts as he watched the stark raving madwoman before him. 

Harry felt conflicted, knowing full well that she probably deserved to be down here, unlike Sirius, but he couldn't help but feel pity at the wretched state she was in. 

He almost wondered if Voldemort's emotions were influencing him. 

“Bella,” Voldemort said, patting her hair gently with his hand. “You have served me well. But I must take the memory of this meeting from you.”

He stepped back, and before she could catch on, he’d cast the spell.

_ “Obliviate”  _ She slumped back on the cold hard floor, her long dirty hair fanning out behind her.

Voldemort strode out without giving Bellatrix another glance. 

* * *

The boy hung back, slowly tugging the various keys out of the iron door once Voldemort had locked it. He was clearly miserable about leaving his newly precious godfather behind – but Voldemort did not acknowledge it. He just turned, retracing their steps back up the dungeons.

_ The boy would follow.  _

And Harry did, still sullen, but following him, nevertheless. 

Contentment washed over Voldemort. Things were going to plan! He was nowhere close to finding the Slytherin Locket but given that Regulus hadn’t given it to Sirius Black before he died – it was unlikely to have found its way to Dumbledore. And Bellatrix's memories confirmed that the Hufflepuff Cup was safe in Gringotts! At least for now. He could get it out when he wanted. And as for Harry!

Voldemort smiled, a warm glow suffusing him even though the Dungeons were getting colder. The miserable place which stifled all things magic had annoyed him on their journey down, but he hardly noticed it as they made their way back. So lost in his thoughts of the victory he had scored. 

Anything he could have said against Dumbledore paled in comparison to what Harry had just witnessed - the decade-old suffering the boy’s godfather had endured, and Dumbledore hadn’t done a thing! Voldemort had felt the trust that Harry Potter had in Dumbledore and the rest of the wizarding world leak out of him. 

Voldemort wanted to laugh hysterically at the turn of events. The joy was so intense that he could feel a grin tugging at his face. 

A niggling feeling of confusion wormed its way through the contentment he had been feeling. Voldemort stopped short. 

_ Contentment. A strong emotion had washed over him. Why would he feel –  _

The dungeon, he realised, was bitterly cold. 

_ Voldemort turned slowly to look back at Harry, who had been trailing behind him. Harry, who now had his invisibility cloak pulled down partially so that Voldemort could see his disembodied head and his wand just seemingly floating in the air.  _

A trail of magical residue flitted in the air around them.

_ A cheering charm. The stupid boy had used a cheering charm on him! _

_ Harry was clearly surprised that he had succeeded. Almost horrified. _

_ Out of the corner of his eyes – Voldemort felt a flash of movement. He twisted but wasn’t quick enough as the three Dementors surrounded him, silent and deadly. A grey slimy looking hand shot out, and it grasped him by his shoulder. _

__

_ Voldemort didn’t fear the Dementors. He knew at least a dozen ways to get past them. What he hadn’t expected were the memories to assault him.  _

_ The world swirled as from far away he heard screaming, terrible, terrified pleading screaming.  _

_ “I’ll hold him off. Lily go-“ _

_ “Not Harry, not Harry, please…kill me instead! please have mercy! Mercy!”  _

_ “Avada Kedavra!” _

_ He felt the moment the curse went awry. The pain as his remaining soul was cleaved as if right in the middle. He felt the fear of death, which he had thought he’d escaped all those years ago.  _

The sorrow and the fear of it all made Voldemort gag. 

He snarled, wanting to move his hand, to rip that women’s throat out just to make all the screaming stop, but it went on and on.

He was reliving it—his and Harry’s worst memory. 

The screaming did not let off. Voldemort found he couldn’t move. 

Even as the Dementor picked him up from the ground and brought him closer, almost intimately, to where its gaping hole of a mouth was. He felt the creature draw in a rattling breath and felt his mind revolt as it tried to steal his magic and his soul from him. He heard the boy scream distantly in the background. 

_ “Expecto Patronum!”  _

It was weak. An insipid little light that spread out from Harry's wand, no better than a Lumos, but it made the Dementors pause long enough for Voldemort to act. 

Within one breath and the next, he’d cast a banishing charm forcing the Dementors a couple of steps backwards; simultaneously, he spelt himself away from them, towards Harry. The latter was now lying on the ground, clutching his head, clearly unable to continue with the spell. Voldemort was able to close their connection, which helped shut part of the horrible memories that the Dementors had stirred. 

He yanked at Harry’s head harshly, tugging at his hair as he snarled into the tearstained face of his nemesis till Harry opened his eyes. 

_ “Legilimens!” _

He pressed harder than usual, so much so that he wasn't just looking at Harry's memories but was tumbling down the bond that connected them. 

Taking control of Quirrell had felt painful, but with Harry, it was far easier. 

Harry was his, after all. 

Voldemort couldn’t cast the Patronus with his broken soul but Harry?

_ “EXPECTO PATRONUM!” _ He shouted in Harry's voice, and a stag with wings burst out of Harry's wand, blinding in its brilliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random thoughts when writing 
> 
> Writing about an Azkaban Sirius was hard. He is a little less debonair-escaped-convict-with-a-year's-worth-of-time outside-Azkaban here and more a man still deeply wronged and with oodles of survivor's guilt. I don't think that ever goes away, really, even in cannon, though it is brushed under the rug. 
> 
> It does seem a bit harsh to introduce Eddie Bones as a Bones family relative (given their near total destruction at Voldemort's hands) and to make him the black sheep but I must admit I am far more intrigued by the titbits on Valerie Selwyn. 
> 
> How pissed do you think Voldemort is going to be on a scale of 1 ( _Harry is mine!_ ) to 10 ( _Harry is mine! I will chop him into bits and preserve him in ether_ ). 
> 
> It fills me with both glee and grief that Harry would attempt a harebrained scheme involving cheering charms at Voldemort. But for Voldemort to think that Harry would just go along with _all of Voldemort's smug planning_. As if!
> 
> All feedback is deeply appreciated. Thank you for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> A Key if not clear:
> 
> Specific Thoughts are in _italics_ as are _'past dialogues within quotes'_
> 
> Parseltongue is in **bold**
> 
> This work is pure indulgence on my part. I love a good 'what if Voldemort knew Harry Potter was his horcrux' and while there are plenty of these works, there was a specific one that I wanted to read and couldn't find. So I started writing it myself. 
> 
> While you will find cannon sprinkled here and there, I have no interest in regurgitating the 7 books and given the nature of the AU, relationships will develop differently. Information from Pottermore and the books have been used only when it suits my purpose. 
> 
> Comments are much appreciated!


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